What’s at Stake in Iran’s Presidential Election

(Bloomberg) -- Iranians are being urged by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to vote June 18 in a presidential election that’s expected to produce the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history. The vast majority of moderate and reformist contenders for the position were disqualified from running, leaving the field dominated mostly by arch conservatives. The country’s powerful clerics have based their political legitimacy on a circumscribed electoral process they say reflects the will of the people. Now many officials, including outgoing President Hassan Rouhani, have expressed concern that a limited lineup of candidates will alienate voters to the point of undermining the voting system’s credibility. Even Khamenei has expressed dissatisfaction with the disqualifications. For the rest of the world, the election is likely to mean that Rouhani, a relative moderate who’s reached his limit of two terms in office, will be replaced by a president who is hostile to the West and highly critical of the 2015 international deal limiting Iran’s nuclear program.

1. Who are the candidates?

Of the 592 people who applied to run for president, seven men were approved by Iran’s powerful Guardian Council, a body of 12 legal experts appointed by Khamenei that vets candidates for office and has veto power over all legislation passed by parliament.

2. Who’s been barred?

They include First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri and former Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, a pragmatic conservative whose disqualification brought the most surprise because of his closeness to Khamenei and strong position within the political establishment. Three high-ranking officers in the Revolutionary Guards, including a current adviser to Khamenei, were also deemed ineligible. Many of the conservatives who didn’t protest their disqualification pledged their support to Raisi, adding to speculation that the Guardian Council engineered the race to work in the cleric’s favor. The most prominent reformist excluded from the poll was Mostafa Tajzadeh, a minister under President Khatami. Jailed in the past for his political activities, he’s led calls for a boycott of the election since his disqualification.

3. Why is turnout expected to be low?

In a poll of about 5,000 people conducted by the semi-official Iranian Students’ Polling Agency from May 30 to June 1, 32% said they definitely would not vote, compared with 34% who said they definitely would. The election comes at a time of widespread discontent and economic malaise. Members of Iran’s middle class, most of whom traditionally vote for moderates or reformists, have suffered the most as a result of sanctions imposed on Iran by then-President Donald Trump after he pulled the U.S. out of the nuclear deal. Unemployment has surged, and a deep plunge in the value of the rial has greatly diminished people’s spending power. At the same time, Iranian authorities, led by the Revolutionary Guards, have cracked down severely on expressions of discontent; foreign rights groups have reported some of the worst violence and civilian bloodshed since Iran’s revolution in 1979. Iranians commonly ridicule the election on social media, often using memes satirizing the lack of diversity on the ballot.

4. What are the implications for the nuclear deal?

The deal faltered after the U.S. withdrew from it and reinstated related sanctions in 2018, prompting Iran to take escalating steps breaching the accord’s limits on its nuclear program. After Trump was replaced as U.S. president by Joe Biden, officials representing Rouhani’s government began negotiating with world powers in an effort to revive the accord. A pre-election renewal of it that would lift the U.S. sanctions and thereby encourage foreign investment in Iran’s aged infrastructure and energy sector presumably would strengthen the two relatively moderate candidates. Resuscitating the deal later, or keeping a revitalized deal on track, if a hard-liner is elected president is a much more challenging prospect.

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