Iranian voters expressed disappointment with Iran’s system of governance in the country’s presidential election on Friday, casting ballots in record low numbers to send two candidates into the running. second election.
The July 5 runoff will give voters a final choice between a reformist former health minister, Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian, and a hard-line former nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, neither of whom won the more than 50 percent of the vote needed to win the presidency. That delays for another week the question of who will steer Iran through challenges that include a weak economy, a widening gulf between rulers and ruled, and a nearby war that threatens to drag Iran deeper into the fray.
But despite belonging to two different factions, neither of them is expected to bring major change to Iran, as they must run the country with the final approval of Iran’s supreme leader, the Grand Ayatollah. Ali Khamenei.
Here are the most important takeaways from Friday’s election.
The Iranians continue to reject this system.
According to government figures, only 40% of eligible Iranians voted on Friday, a historically low turnout for an Iranian presidential race — even lower than the 41% reported for this year’s Iranian parliamentary elections.
Although elections in Iran once drew enthusiastic crowds, more and more people have stayed home in recent years as a form of protest against the ruling elite, whom they blame for destroying the economy, stripping away social and political freedoms and isolating Iran from the world.
In the 2013 presidential election, a large number of urban, middle-class Iranians, eager for prosperity and a more open society, placed their faith in a reformist candidate, Hassan Rouhani. They hoped he would loosen social and political restrictions and strike a deal that would lift Western sanctions in exchange for curbs on their country’s nuclear activities.
Mr. Rouhani made that deal only to have President Donald J. Trump unilaterally withdraw from it and reimpose sanctions in 2018, sending Iran’s economy — which analysts say also suffers from mismanagement and corruption by its leaders — back into recession.
And the social freedoms that Iranians have created under Mr. Mandatory head coverings down to the shoulders – evaporated after Mr. Trump’s 2021 election. Rouhani’s successor, Ebrahim Raisi, a hardliner, died in a helicopter crash last month.
Seeing that voting for reformists could not guarantee lasting change, Iranians turned away from the polls and turned against the system. Their anger reached a new peak in 2022, when months of nationwide anti-government protests Eruptions followed by a young woman, Mahsa Aminidied after being arrested by police. With the enforcement of modesty laws increasing under Mr. Raisi, she was detained for wearing her hijab improperly.
What can happen in the flow?
Voters remain skeptical that any candidate can bring about real change, even one who has been openly critical of the government like reformist candidate Dr. Pezeshkian. So, despite the disillusionment of many voters with the current conservative-dominated government, it is far from certain that they will turn out to support Dr. Pezeshkian in the runoff election.
One reason Dr. Pezeshkian made it to the ballot, despite being the only reformer in a crowded field, is that the other two major candidates are hardliners who have split the conservative vote. Mr. Jalili, the more ideologically rigid of the two, is not guaranteed to win over his former conservative opponent, as early polls showed many of them were not interested in supporting Mr. Jalili.
However, that could change after rival Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf urged his supporters to vote for Mr Jalili on Saturday to ensure victory for the conservatives.
Overall, the powerful ruling elite, led by Mr Khamenei, appears to prefer Mr Jalili to win. Mr Khamenei is personally close to Mr Jalili and shares his hardline views, and he has recently criticized Dr Pezeshkian for being too close to the West. The fact that the clerical council vetting presidential candidates allowed five conservatives to run alongside a single reformer signals that the supreme leader wants a lieutenant who will pursue a similar agenda.
Is that important?
In Iran’s system, the supreme leader makes all the big decisions, especially when it comes to important issues like nuclear negotiations and foreign policy. But the president can set the tone, as Mr Rouhani did in pursuing a nuclear deal with the West.
Whoever becomes president is likely to have more power to manage issues like social restrictions — not just enforcing mandatory hijab wearing, which has been an ongoing flashpoint among protesters. Iran’s rulers and the people, but also sensitive issues such as whether female singers can perform on stage.
He will also have some influence on the country’s economic policy. Inflation has skyrocketed in recent years and the value of the Iranian currency has plummeted, making life difficult for Iranians as the value of their wages and savings evaporate. Fresh fruit, vegetables and meat have all become difficult to come by for many people.
But efforts to revive the economy can only go so far as Iran continues to suffer from US and European sanctions, restricting Iran’s oil sales and important banking transactions.
What will this mean for the Middle East crisis and Iran’s nuclear program?
Outside Iran, all eyes are on the country’s next foreign and nuclear policy.
Iran is a key player in a conflict that threatens to spread from Gaza, where Iran’s arch-foe Israel is waging a bloody war to destroy Hamas, across the Middle East. Iran has supported, funded and armed not only Hamas but also Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia on Israel’s northern border against which Israel has repeatedly carried out deadly attacks in recent months.
Although that violence has not yet turned into war, partly because Iran does not want to be drawn into a broader conflict, Israel has recently taken a sharper tone, warning that it could shift its focus from Gaza to Lebanon. And Iran and Israel no longer limit their hostility in battle to proxy or covert attacks: The two sides have launched open, if limited, attacks on each other’s territory. in this year.
It’s also unclear what the new presidential election will mean for the West’s years-long effort to curb Iran’s nuclear program. Six years after Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from the original nuclear deal, Iran is now closer than ever to being able to produce some form of nuclear weapon. And after decades of insisting that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, some senior Iranian leaders are openly arguing that recent missile exchanges with Israel mean Iran should accept building a bomb.
