Pezeshkan wins, but Jalili is the favorite in the second round

Iranians voted on Friday to elect a new president. Liberal reformist Massoud Pezeshkian and a conservative protégé of Supreme Leader Saeed Jalili advanced to the second round. Pezeshkian received 10.4 million votes and Jalili received 9.47 million, with a turnout of about 40%, or 24.5 million. Iran has more than 61 million voters.

The Iranian president does not hold the same status as his American or French counterpart. Instead, it is a prime minister who oversees economic blocs and negotiations with foreign powers under the leadership of a lifelong all-powerful ruler, a supreme leader with almost absolute power, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Islamic Republic of Iran – the velay-e faqih, or state of the Shia’s top theologian and expert in religious law. The president’s relatively low status reflects this. Still, as a weak figure, the Iranian president can still have some influence on national politics.

New elections are particularly important for a number of reasons. The main one is that the Supreme Leader (Rahbar) is already 85 years old and in poor health. This means that a transfer of power is likely to occur in the foreseeable future. In this context, the image of the presidency is particularly important. A lot will depend on who will take up this position amid chaos and the struggle for power among the clans. In addition, it should be remembered that Khamenei himself served as president before becoming the Supreme Leader and replacing his predecessor Rahbar, the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (after the latter’s death). Those. In theory, the presidency can be seen as a springboard for a leap upwards, although this does not necessarily happen.

In this case, for Khamenei himself and the entire Iranian ruling class – the powerful elite of the IRGC and its associated officials, who are slowly but surely privatizing state-owned enterprises to the benefit of their relatives, the IRGC. For all the millionaires and billionaires who profit from government contracts and corruption, it is necessary to ensure a smooth transition of power. Former President Ebrahim Raisi, a former prosecutor and judge with IRGC connections, is the ideal person to carry out this project – a conservative, cruel and at the same time weak and insecure executor of the Supreme Leader’s orders. After his death in the plane crash, there was no doubt that Khamenei would pick up the second plane.

Khamenei has several effective mechanisms for selecting and actually appointing the president. One of these is the so-called Guardian Council, a government body that screens presidential candidates, ostensibly based on its own legal and religious philosophies, but in reality carrying out Khamenei’s orders. In the last election, the Guardian Council allowed only seven candidates out of 600, disqualifying any prominent representatives of the regime’s factions from running against Raisi. In the last election, only six of 80 candidates remained, ruling out all the well-known names.

The second mechanism is the millions of state employees. The ruling regime forces them to vote for the right candidate every time. Since most Iranians are tired of this comedy, only a little over 48% of voters participate in the elections – read “appointments” – Raisi – and then, there are the state employees. The votes of the latter (plus some sincere loyalists) are enough for Raisi.

Finally, if society still chooses a candidate that Khamenei doesn’t like, the election results can be falsified. This happened in 2009, when the liberal reformist candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi defeated the conservative populist representative Ahmadinejad, but the authorities declared the latter the winner. These falsifications triggered millions of protest demonstrations called the Green Revolution (whose main slogan was “Where is my voice?”). The protests were bloodily suppressed.

In other words, in such an “election”, the main question is: which candidate will the Supreme Leader appoint as the new Laishi?

Among the most popular candidates, only Rahbar’s deputy in the National Security Council, Saeed Jalili, has the same characteristics. In the past, he was the one who oversaw the nuclear negotiations with the United States, strictly implemented Khamenei’s instructions, and showed an uncompromising attitude, which ultimately led to the disastrous consequences of heavy sanctions on Iran. But from Rahbar’s point of view, his diligence and dedication worked in his favor in this case. In addition, Jalili is a hardliner against the West, which is roughly in line with the views of the Supreme Leader.

Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, a prominent representative of the IRGC who is said to have some chances in this election, has held many positions in the past, from the commander of the IRGC Air Force to the mayor of Tehran. He is known for his ultra-conservative views and has enacted a harsh headscarf law. He led the crackdown on student and youth protests and is known for heading Khatam al-Anbiya, the country’s largest construction company, which receives most of the government contracts. Ghalibaf is a corrupt millionaire, an energetic, ultra-conservative military man (he calls himself “Hezbollah’s version of Reza Shah”), who can serve as president because he is part of the core of Iran’s ruling class. But his problem is that he is an independent figure – he is very different from the executive, bumbling Raisi. It is unlikely that he will obey the Supreme Leader without question in everything. He lost to two other candidates in the first round of elections.

In the televised debates, another candidate was ahead — the only representative of the regime’s reformist liberal wing allowed to run, Masoud Pezeshkian, a trained surgeon who served as health minister in the cabinet of reformist President Mahmoud Khatami from 2002 to 2005, when such people were allowed to hold senior posts. In addition, Pezeshkian criticized the attacks of the morality police on women who do not wear headscarves. Most women are against compulsory headscarves. Iranian researcher Ali Alfne noted that since 2008, Pezeshkian “represented the Tabriz, Azarshahr and Osku regions in the Iranian parliament and was the chairman of the influential “Turkic faction” in parliament.

It consists of Azerbaijani spokesmen of different political tendencies and lobby groups for government projects in the northwestern provinces where Azerbaijanis live. Most likely, it was this Azerbaijani coalition that promoted him to the post of Deputy Speaker of the Parliament for 2016-2020. Pezeshkian’s parliamentary record includes calls for the transfer of public funds to the peripheral regions, including the Azerbaijani regions, Kurdistan, Sistan and Baluchestan; demands for the use of the Azerbaijani language in school textbooks and in the Azerbaijani regions. ” Thus, he has a chance to win the support of women and minorities, which is the support of the vast majority of voters. In the field of foreign policy, Pezeshkian advocates détente, normalization of relations with Washington and concessions in the field of the nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of US economic sanctions.

Pezeshkian was allowed to run in the election both because he is a reformer, which could draw more voters to the polls, and because, as Khamenei’s office may decide, he is not well-known enough to win.

In fact, according to sociologists who study Iran, the most protesting and rebellious areas of the country are those where residents do not vote. The ruling class of Iranian society – a wealthy class of officials, military officers and their entrepreneurial relatives – is increasingly isolated from the majority of the people, who are at or below the poverty line. It won’t be long before there is a new revolution, like the ones in 1978-1979 or 2009-2010. Hence Khomeini’s interest in Iranians and his constant calls for them to vote.

However, Pezeshkian is not a “scapegoat”. At first he said that he participated in the election only to implement the will of the Supreme Leader; they began to laugh at him. But then he showed a little disagreement, and in a TV debate he completely tore apart his conservative opponents, supporters of the Supreme Leader’s line, asking a simple question, why they let the country suffer the most severe international sanctions and terrible poverty. In this context, the opponents looked pitiful, especially Jahalili.

Interestingly, in response to the moderator’s question: “If a woman shows up in a restaurant without a headscarf or not adequately covered, what will you do as president? The authorities will close the restaurant, the owner will suffer financial losses, and there will be a conflict?” Jalili replied: “We must understand the strategic depth of this issue. Otherwise we will not be able to understand its significance.” When the author of the question went on to ask: “So what should we do before we understand the strategic depth of the issue?” Jalili again mentioned the “strategic depth” of the issue.

Pezeshkian took the lead. However, there were two problems with it.

First, he could easily win as long as the turnout reaches 60% or more. Most Iranians dislike the Supreme Leader and his followers and are ready to support anyone just to not see all of them again. However, Friday’s turnout was the lowest since Iran’s presidential election. The reason is that many people no longer trust the reformists in the system, who are seen as puppets of the Supreme Leader or at least as powerless pseudo-politicians who cannot change anything. During the protests, young Iranians often chanted slogans such as “Conservatives and reformists – get out!”

Secondly, Jalili is most convenient for the Supreme Leader, who, as already mentioned, has a rich set of necessary tools to get the results he wants in the elections. Even if the vast majority of voters vote for Pezeshkian, Khamenei’s office can portray the results they want, as it did during the 2009 elections.

In short, Jalili is likely to finish first in the second round with a lower turnout, and he is likely to finish first even with any turnout. But this in turn presents some difficulties. Iranian elections are held against a backdrop of social, economic and political instability. Most people are at or below the poverty line. Even according to official data, prices are rising at 40-50% per year, and the actual inflation rate is probably much higher.

More than half of the population is young, representatives of the first digital generation, zoomers formed in the global network; for them, the rule of the old men of the revolutionary generation of 1978-1979 is a bit like the rule of the ancient lizards. All sections of society are revolting – illegal strikes of oil workers are taking place. In the poorest areas where ethnic minorities live (Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Balochs and others together make up half or the majority of Iranian citizens), protests break out from time to time due to the lack of schools in the local language and the overall discrimination against mature local governments and the fact that the money earned in these areas flows to the capital and the Farsi-speaking provinces.

The regime’s legitimacy is declining, especially at the polls – fewer and fewer people are turning up to the polls. This is dangerous for the system – according to sociologists, the most rebellious are in regions with low electoral participation.

If Jalili wins – which is the most likely outcome – those who came to vote for Pezeshkian will probably have a negative view. Almost certainly, many of them will say that they were deceived again, just like in 2009. In a sense, given the situation of state employees, this is true. We will not argue here that Jalili’s alleged victory will lead to a repeat of the events of the Green Revolution of 2009-2010. But it will definitely not increase the popularity of the regime and will almost certainly cause additional anger in society.