The sudden news of President Ebrahim Raisi’s helicopter crash on May 19 shocked the clerical establishment in Tehran. In that crash, President Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdolahian, and other companions were killed. The cause of the crash has not been determined yet, while suspicion of sabotage has not been ruled out. This incident happened following the indirect talks with the U.S. that took place in Muscat, Oman. The issues discussed included the nuclear program and Houthi attacks on U.S. ships. In the meantime, the 14th presidential election has been scheduled for June 28 for Raisi’s replacement.
Presidential Election of 2024
In the past few elections, turnout has been very low. In the parliamentary elections held in March 2024, turnout fell to 41%; only 25 million people voted out of about 61 eligible voters, a record low. Back in 2021, when Raisi was elected, 49% of voters took part, the lowest since the formation of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Most voters hate to participate as they are not pleased with the theocratic rules.
One reason for the low turnout has been the vetting of the applicants by the Guardian Council. The Guardian Council consists of six Islamic Jurisprudents, selected by the Leader, and six Islamists, specializing in different areas of the law, selected by the parliament. Since 1992, eligibility has been determined at the discretion of the Guardian Council, and people can only vote for those for whom the Council confirms their eligibility. In reality, people’s discretion is replaced by the government officials’ discretion. Therefore, many political groups do not have candidates of their own choice on the ballot for which to vote. For that reason, secular and nationalist political groups commonly boycott the elections. The National Front, which is a coalition of a few nationalist parties, has consistently boycotted the elections since it was banned by the regime a few years after the revolution.
After examining the records of 80 applicants who had applied to run for the upcoming presidential election, the Guardian Council confirmed the qualifications of six candidates. They were Saeed Jalili, a former national security chief; Alireza Zakani, the current Tehran Mayor; Amirhossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi, a former vice president; Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the head of the parliament; Masoud Pezshkian, a former deputy parliament speaker and health minister, and Mustafa Pour Mohammadi, a mullah who served as justice minister. The first three candidates were also selected in the previous presidential election in 2021. The Council disqualified several high-profile figures of the regime from running.
The strategy for bringing more voters to the polls in this election was the selection of Masoud Pezeshkian, the only candidate from the so-called reformist camp. Pezeshkian has said that the effort is to bring back the people who were angry at the regime to the ballot boxes in any way possible. Reformists strive for a metamorphosis of the Islamic Republic compared with the secular political groups that wish for the demise of the theocratic regime. Pezeshkian, 70, was born in the city of Mahabad to an Azerbaijani father and a Kurdish mother. Mahabad is located in the province of Kurdistan. Pezeshkian speaks Azari (a Turkish language common in the Azerbaijan provinces) as well. Pezeshkian has insisted his children speak Turkish at home. Selecting him is intended to bring more voters from the reformists’ camp as well as the northwest region that has large Kurdish and Azari populations. However, bringing Pezeshkian into the election game may not necessarily increase voter participation since most people want structural change in the theocratic system. Yet, some of his reformist colleagues have not endorsed him. Pezeshkian is an ordinary Islamist who wants to preserve theocracy while pursuing neoliberal policies.
The Candidates’ Plans
Each candidate, along with their two advisors, had a chance to present their plans to the audience at a roundtable on State T.V. There were five debates for the six candidates to discuss their approach to economic policy, foreign policy, cultural issues, economic sanctions, nuclear negotiations, and women’s hejab.
Pezeshkian has said he does not know anything about economics and can rely on his advisor for the matter. He has chosen Javad Zarif as his foreign policy advisor. Pezeshkian and Zarif talked on radio and television about the JCPOA and reconciliation with the U.S. Zarif cited verses from the Qur’an in Arabic to pretend that he could use the same words as the mullahs instead of the English words he usually used in his speeches. Some see Pezeshkian as an impostor who pretends to maintain the theocratic rules while pursuing neoliberal economic reforms and returning Iran to the nuclear deal in the hope of lifting the economic sanctions. However, this is wishful thinking; the nuclear issue is a pretext by the U.S. to weaken and contain Iran in the oil-rich region. Even during the eight years of Hassan Rouhani’s presidency, when Zarif was foreign minister and the nuclear negotiator, the U.S. offered to temporarily suspend the sanctions, not lifting them and never there was a law passed by in the U.S. Congress to permit lifting the sanctions.
Pezeshkian wants to pursue negotiations with the U.S. to lift the sanctions. This is a deception of people to get votes. Negotiations under Hassan Rouhani led to the disastrous nuclear deal, which almost destroyed the nuclear infrastructure of Iran. About two-thirds of Iran’s 19,000 centrifuges were dismantled, 97% of its 10,000 kg enriched uranium was destroyed, and Iran would not be able to enrich uranium more than 3.67%. Only the nuclear-related sanctions could be suspended but would be snapped back.
Internally, the regime has many problems. Iranians have been frustrated with the theocratic rules and the dwindling economy. However, internationally, the clerics have recently gained support from the Muslims in the region due to their backing of Palestinians who have been under an intense war of genocide by Israel, in which by now, more than 38000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children. Clerics support militant Islamists in the region who attack Israel with missiles, as the war in Gaza drags on. The top clerics in the Islamic Republic use Palestinians’ cause as a powerful political force to promote their own influence in the Islamic World. Due to this policy, the fundamentalists have more grassroots support than the so-called reformists, who generally advocate pro-West policies.
The challenge in this election is whether the reformists can grab the presidency despite their past failure to improve the Iranian livelihood. The president of the Islamic Republic is not the head of the government; he serves as an administrator who implements the orders of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The Supreme Leader acts as the head of the government and has the ultimate authority on key domestic and foreign matters. Khamenei is 85 years old and is in poor health; he is taking steps to ensure that Iran will continue to maintain theocratic rules. Khamenei and his staff are reluctant to allow the so-called reformists to have a real chance to win back the presidency. Whenever the reformists took over the presidency, they further worsened the economy and weakened the country.
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Akbar E. Torbat ([email protected]) is the author of “Politics of Oil and Nuclear Technology in Iran,” Palgrave Macmillan, (2020), https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030337650, Farsi translation of the book is available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368362195_Politics_of_Oil_and_Nuclear_Technology_in_Iran_Farsi_Translation_Akbar_Torbat
