Voting takes place in Iran’s snap presidential election today – a contest brought forward by the death last month in a helicopter crash of the former president Ebrahim Raisi. A few predictions can be made with absolute certainty.
Firstly, the winner will be a man (there are no women taking part – Iran’s ruling clerics take a dim view of the idea of a woman being allowed near the presidency). Secondly, the new president will be someone who swears absolute loyalty to the system and ultimately the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. All of which prompts the question of why bother to have an election. The answer is that elections – the semblance of voters being presented with a range of candidates to choose from – serve as cover for the Iranian regime to pose as ultimately accountable to the people.
All of which prompts the question of why bother to have an election
Six candidates were given the nod by the Guardian Council – a 12-strong panel of clerics appointed by the Supreme Leader and the Iranian parliament. The list of approved candidates serves as a good guide to the thinking and priorities of the ruling clique in Tehran. In this instance, not one of the names put forward has either the political profile or power base to pose any real threat to the Supreme Leader. The highly restrictive candidate vetting ensures the dominance of religious hardliners in the corridors of power. Two of the six who made the final list, Amirhossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi (who served as one of Raisi’s vice-presidents) and Alireza Zakani, the mayor of Tehran, withdrew from the race in the hours before polling opened. It leaves three other hardliners in the running, alongside Masoud Pezeshkian, a former health minister, who is billed as a reformer.
The paramount authority in the Iranian system is the Supreme Leader, who wields ultimate influence in key policy areas such as foreign and nuclear policy. Nevertheless, the president has the power to appoint cabinet members, a crucial role in various councils that inform decision-making, and serves as the public face of the regime. Whoever wins will face significant challenges almost immediately, both at home and abroad.
The presidential election is broadly seen as a three-way contest. Two of the leading contenders, naturally enough, are the most hardline of the hardliners. Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf is the speaker of the Iranian parliament and a former Revolutionary Guard chief. Saeed Jalili is a former senior nuclear negotiator who did much to stall talks. The other hardliner in the race is Mostafa Pourmohammadi, an ex-justice and interior minister.
The wild card is Pezeshkian, a 69-year-old heart surgeon. He stands out as the only reformist candidate seeking the presidency (a word of caution: reformist means something entirely different in Iran, and is far from your average political do-gooder in the western sense). Cynics suggest that he has only made it on to the final list as part of a regime ploy to raise voter turnout. His rallies have drawn large crowds in the capital Tehran and other major cities. More pertinently, he appears to favour diplomacy as a means to end sanctions. The Supreme Leader has made clear that he is less than impressed with such talk, warning that anyone who believes ‘all ways to progress’ come from the United States shouldn’t be supported.
Khamenei has also called for ‘maximum’ turnout in the election. ‘The Islamic Republic has enemies. One thing that helps the Islamic Republic overcome its enemies are the elections,’ Khamenei said in a speech earlier this week. It is a plea that is likely to go unheeded.
Ordinary Iranians have had more than enough of this electoral farce: parliamentary elections earlier this year saw a record low turnout of just under 41 per cent. Similar numbers are expected in the presidential election. There is apathy but also widespread discontent. There have been mass protests following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini in 2022, with women publicly refusing to wear the country’s mandatory headscarf or hijab. The protest movement symbolises a broader yearning for fundamental human rights and freedoms, and a demand for change to the status quo.
The Iranian economy has tanked under the pressure of Western sanctions, with inflation running at more than 40 per cent and unemployment high. Iranian voters are less inclined than ever to give the regime legitimacy by participating in the elections. They know all too well that whoever wins the presidential election is unlikely to deliver much in the way of change. Who can blame them? The country is in a state of perpetual paralysis because those in charge – the Supreme Leader and the Revolutionary Guards – have no intention of ceding any real power. Elections in Iran are merely a sideshow at best.