2021 Iranian Presidential Elections- A Sign of Danger or a Hidden Opportunity?
/By Research Fellow Govind Ramagopal
There have been a few fascinating Presidential elections since the birth of the Islamic Republic in 1979, but the election on June 18th promises to be one of the most consequential elections in the recent history of Iran. This election is significant as well because given Ayatollah Khamenei’s advanced age and ill health, it could be the last presidential election he presides over as Supreme Leader. Additionally, the election will be held during the ongoing COVID pandemic, where Iranians who have been suffering from sanctions induced economic hardship, have also been dealing with economic travails brought about by the COVID pandemic. While there has been no lockdown on the scale seen in Western countries, frustration about economic, political, and health related disasters and incompetence have reached new heights. The hope and optimism that permeated through much of Iranian society after President Rouhani’s election in 2013, and especially in the aftermath of the JCPOA’s passage in 2015, have long since evaporated. Now, anger and apathy are widespread amongst those with moderate or reformist political inclinations.
Additionally, many reform-minded voters in large cities such as Tehran, Isfahan, and Shiraz may boycott the Presidential polls just as they did the Parliamentary elections in February 2020. This bodes poorly for any hopes by the Rouhani-aligned political grouping for any continuation of government policy. As a result of apathy and fatalism by the reformist camp due to the authorities barring their desired candidates from contesting the election, conservatives are predicting a win for their candidate, Chief Justice Ebrahim Raisi. In the West, there are concerns as to what a Raisi win would mean for Iran’s nuclear program, and relations with Middle Eastern nations. If a moderate candidate pulls off an ‘unexpected’ win, concerns about Iran’s nuclear program and human rights won’t disappear, but there will be greater scope for dialogue between Iran and the West. However, the more likely outcome is a conservative victory, and there are fears it could lead to renewed conflict between both sides.
Background to the Political Dynamics of 2021
The political landscape in Iran at the moment is one of tension and brittleness. The hardline and reformist factions both feel a sense of betrayal by the other side. The reformists feel that the conservatives had been routing for failure during the JCPOA negotiations, and conservatives felt that reformists/ moderates gave too much away to the West during the negotiations. In the past, it has not been uncommon for the pendulum to swing quite dramatically in Iranian domestic politics. From President Khatami to President Ahmadinejad, the sudden change in ideological orientation and style was dramatic, to put it mildly. Then, public exhaustion and anger at President Ahmadinejad led to President Hassan Rouhani’s surprise win in 2013, where he received just over 50 percent in the first round. In many ways, his win was reminiscent of President Khatami’s landslide victory in the 1997 Presidential election, (though Rouhani did not win as large a mandate as his reformist predecessor), and Rouhani was more of a ‘small-c conservative’ by temperament, and more cautious with his overall policy platform. Nevertheless, President Rouhani corralled a very similar voting coalition to Mohammad Khatami, and the younger, urban-dwelling citizenry propelled the incumbent President into office.
After President Rouhani took office, it seemed as if the new government was making progress to provide more room for political expression and in loosening restrictions on women’s sartorial preferences. Further, the chronically high inflation that had plagued the country since the imposition of stringent multilateral sanctions, driven by the U.S since 2010, started to come down as a result of President Rouhani’s economic reform efforts. With a relatively positive atmosphere present in many quarters of Iranian society, and with a commensurate Western interest in the opening up taking place in Iran, momentum seemed to be building towards a gradual restoration of at least a functional relationship with the West. Underpinning the overall move towards a more cooperative relationship with the West was the Islamic Republic’s desire to relieve multilateral sanctions choking its economy, in exchange for surrendering some of its capacity to enrich uranium. After two years of diplomatic wrangling and acrimonious negotiations, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, and Germany agreed to a ground- breaking agreement with Tehran.
The passage of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was met with widespread satisfaction, and even joy in some parts of Iran. President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, a skilled, American-educated diplomat were congratulated by wide swathes of Iranian society, and at the time it appeared the security establishment (who opposed the deal), and particularly the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, was on the back-foot. In the subsequent months, the U.S and Europe lifted nuclear-related sanctions, and Iran began receiving European business delegations that expressed a strong desire to return to the country. For instance, Iran’s flag-carrier IranAir even placed an order for multiple Boeing and Airbus aircraft. Yet, despite these early moves, the U.S did not remove its full panoply of unilaterally imposed sanctions on Tehran in time for any meaningful opening up of Iran’s economy to materialize. By the end of 2016, the possibility of any further rapprochement came to a screeching halt with the election of Donald Trump, and potential business investment dried up.
The Trump Administration’s policy towards the Islamic Republic was one of “maximum pressure”. The policy was implemented in the aftermath of the U.S’ withdrawal from the JCPOA in May 2018. Five of the remaining signatories (UK, France, Germany, Russia, and China) to the agreement sought to uphold it, by trying to maintain their own trading arrangements with Iran, with one example being the INSTEX system designed by the European Union. However, this instrument was one such device that proved unable to counteract the reach of the American financial system, and the threats U.S secondary sanctions had on other countries and companies investment policies towards Iran. Subsequently, the value of the Iranian Rial plummeted, and inflation soared. Ordinary Iranians’ purchasing power shrank precipitously, leading to widespread anger at both the Trump Administration, but also the Rouhani Administration’s inability to do anything to stop what Minister Zarif called “economic terrorism”. With Washington’s failure to adhere to the terms of the JCPOA, and the inability to see any tangible economic gains from it, severe cynicism and gloom set into the Iranian body politic, leading to the much more conservative and hostile political landscape today.
Mechanics of the Electoral Process
Taking the political context into consideration, one might be tempted to ask how the electoral process works? For starters, political candidates in Iran, whether they a prospective member of the Majles, or the Presidency, are selected by the Guardian Council. The Guardian Council, whose principal secretary is a cleric named Ahmad Jannati, is an appointed body of 12 Islamic clerics and jurists who vet the candidates’ backgrounds and render judgments on their ideological and religious compatibility. The Council’s members sit for six-year terms, and six out of twelve members shuffle out of their seats on the Council every three years. The Supreme Leader is also allowed to appoint six out of twelve members of the Guardian Council. Further, all successfully screened candidates are ostensibly committed to the ideological underpinnings of the 1979 Revolution, and are practitioners of ‘Shia Islam, the state religion. Furthermore, the opacity of the vetting process lends itself to unclear and often arbitrary metrics by which candidates are allowed to pass through the Guardian Council’s screening process. Outside observers tend to label the council as another political body that ferrets out candidates who are deemed anti-revolutionary or simply not up to the clerical establishment’s political or theological standards. Given that the Supreme Leader chooses half (six out of twelve) members of the Guardian Council himself, the selection process favors prospective councilors who would mostly share the Ayatollah’s views on theological and political matters.
In addition, members of the Guardian Council have to be vetted by the judiciary, but since members of the judiciary are also appointed by Ayatollah Khameini, this further slants the membership of the Guardian Council towards those who are ultra conservative. For example, in this year’s presidential election, the Guardian Council imposed a new set of criteria for prospective applicants. The Council announced that candidates could only be between 40 and 75 years old, which disqualified quite a few potential contestants. The current Presidential field is confined to hardline candidates, with the exception of Abdolnasser Hemmati and Mohsen Mehralizadeh. Mr. Hemmati is the former head of the Central Bank of Iran and Mr. Mehralizadeh is a former Governor of Isfahan Province. Despite the presence of these two non-hardline candidates, this ideologically narrow field of candidates underscores how the ideological biases of the Guardian Council have manifested themselves in the selection of this group of contenders for the Presidency.
Even though democracy watchdogs and think tanks such as Freedom House label Iran “Not Free”, there has been a certain amount of heavily managed competition amongst the differing candidates for the Islamic Republic’s elected offices such as the Presidency and Majiles. That this election has seen the deck so heavily stacked against any non-conservative candidate, only highlights the clerical and security establishment’s underlying fear that deep dissatisfaction and even hatred of the regime has to be kept in check. It is very possible that the Supreme Leader and his coterie of advisors fear that if a reformist or even moderate President is elected, combined with a Democrat in the White House, a groundswell of support may rise for broad based economic, social, and political liberalization within the country. That is anathema to those in power who rode the wave of revulsion at the Pahlavi Dynasty and established the Islamic Republic in 1979. With Iran’s overwhelmingly young, and well- educated population, any sustained engagement between reformist leaders in Tehran and the West could prove to be the current regime’s undoing. Any opening to the West and an accompanying normalization of relations could create a cascading effect of increased prosperity, secularization, and positive expectations which could enhance the legitimacy of a more liberal, less autocratic form of government. It appears that the current regime is doing everything in its power to prevent such a possibility. However, another possibility could be that conservatives want to lock in their partisan advantage, and keep a reformist from taking power in the near future, as they felt the Rouhani Administration was disastrous.
The Candidates and their Ideological backgrounds
The Presidential Election of 2021, as per recent practice, promised to be one full of differing candidates, from multiple backgrounds and with a relatively broad array of ideological viewpoints. However, this did not transpire. Given the social and economic backdrop hanging over this presidential election, it was assumed that the reformist aligned candidates would face much greater difficulties against conservatives, and would find winning elections more challenging than 2013 and 2017. This appears to be an understatement because not only has popular opinion appeared to have turned against the reformists and moderate candidates, but the theocratic establishment has banned all but the most fervent supporters of the status quo. Ayatollah Khamenei has been under much pressure over the past decade as a result of the Green Revolution of 2009 and its aftermath. The legitimacy of the regime was badly shaken due to widespread perceptions the vote was rigged in favor of the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as he was (then) still the favorite of the Supreme Leader and the security establishment.
Therefore, after a ruthless crackdown on post-election protesters that threatened to completely spiral out of control, evoking scenes of the 1979 Revolution, the regime had to quickly stem the collapse in the regime’s legitimacy. President Ahmadinejad was allowed to serve his second term, but his power and influence were gradually curtailed. The Revolutionary Guards gained more prominence, and people close to Mr. Ahmadinejad were asked to resign, and later arrested, like his former Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei. However, to quell popular dissatisfaction, Ayatollah Khamenei needed to allow popular will to prevail at the polls, hence the wide array of candidates who were allowed to run in the 2013 and 2017 elections, and the legitimate winner (President Rouhani), was allowed to prevail. Despite initial policy successes by the Rouhani government, the political momentum is now with the conservative establishment. Popular anger with the incumbent administration over the lack of economic benefits from the JCPOA and repeated corruption scandals and government negligence (as evidenced by the Ukrainian Airlines shoot-down), has given conservatives the perception they can win the next Presidential Election.
On the surface, this appears correct, and many conservative candidates have entered the presidential contest, with the frontrunner being the Chief Judge Ebrahim Raisi. Mr. Raisi lost the 2017 election to President Rouhani, despite taking a sizeable 38% of the vote. Before contesting that election he was situated in the holy city of Mashhad, where he served as the custodian of the Imam Reza shrine and the Astan-Quds-Razavi, a charitable foundation or bonyad, that serves the poor and dispossessed. He is also responsible for the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988. After his defeat in 2017, Mr. Raisi nevertheless was promoted to Chief Judge, and many observers viewed that position as a stepping-stone for him to become President or even Supreme Leader if Ayatollah Khamenei resigns or passes away. At least one of those predictions appears to be coming true, because if polls are to be believed, he is on course to win the upcoming Presidential election. There are also a few additional hardline “spoiler” candidates in the contest. The most prominent is Mohsen Rezaei, a former head of the Revolutionary Guards who has run for President in 2005, 2009, and 2013. He is known for his intense anti-Israel views and has been implicated in the 1994 Buenos Aires synagogue bombing. Second, Saeed Jalili is another candidate who ran in 2013, and is a former nuclear negotiator like Ali Larijani, who served in the role for most of President Ahmadinejad’s tenure. He is known as a hardline conservative who worked under Ayatollah Khamenei. Finally, two other candidates, Amir Hossein Ghazizadeh, and Alireza Zakhani are conservative leaning members of the Majles that have also been permitted to run, perhaps to include two new faces into the electoral contest.
However, given how Presidential elections have played out in the past, there could be a potential dark-horse candidate with more reformist tendencies who surprises analysts and confounds predictions. Yet, prominent candidates like Ali Larijani, former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, and even rising stars in the Revolutionary Guards, such as Saeed Mohammad were rejected by the Guardian Council. Therefore, there is less of a chance that a more moderate or reformist candidate can even consolidate the anti-conservative vote and marshal a forward-looking plan for government that includes increasing civil liberties and economic reform.
Such ideologically disposed citizens may have looked to Ali Larijani, the former speaker of the Majles as their best hope to hold on to the Presidency, but those hopes were dashed when the Guardian Council rejected his candidacy. Despite his fairly conservative credentials, he was likely rejected because members of the Guardian Council and even the Supreme Leader himself, felt that Mr. Larijani was not sufficiently hardline. Perhaps a convenient excuse the Guardian Council used to disqualify him was that members of his family were involved in a corruption scandal that has tarnished his family’s name. However, Mr. Larijani also served as Iran’s top nuclear negotiator as Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. This is likely to have caused concern amongst the security establishment that he could successfully pull the U.S back into the deal, get sanctions removed on the country, and reap the political rewards from the economic growth that would follow.
Even though candidates like Ali Larijani and incumbent Vice President Jahangiri were disqualified, there are still two moderate candidates who were approved by the Guardian Council. The first is the former governor of the Central Bank Abdolnasser Hemmati and Mohsen Mehralizadeh, who served as the Governor of Isfahan. It would appear that if one of the two candidates were to pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat and mastermind an upset victory, it would be Mr. Hemmati given his status as a technocrat relatively unconnected to day-to-day politics. Mr. Hemmati is the only non-politician in the contest, having never run for elected office before, but has long been well connected to those in the corridors of power. Additionally, he is by far the most intellectually accomplished, having received his masters and doctorate degrees from Tehran University. He also oversaw war propaganda during the Iran-Iraq War, and over the years he became quite close to the former President, Akbar Rafsanjani. He even worked for his brother, Mohammad Rafsanjani from 1989 to 1994, which coincided with President Rafsanjani’s tenure in office. Taking Mr. Hemmati’s background into consideration, he certainly has the pedigree to launch a successful challenge for the Presidency. If his persuasive skills are up to the task (and it is a monumental task), he could potentially consolidate the anti-Raisi vote, especially in larger cities behind his candidacy. However, the fact remains Mr. Raisi is much more widely known among the public and he has the support of senior clerics and the security establishment. Mr. Hemmati on the other hand, will be labeled guilty by association by much of the public, as his tenure as the Central Bank governor was one that oversaw massive inflation and cratering living standards. Even though much of this was due to factors beyond his control, if he carries the moderate/ reformist banner, he will have to bear responsibility for the policy failures of the incumbent government.
Therefore, given the hurdles a candidate like Mr. Hemmati would have to overcome, it should lead to the conclusion that this election is Mr. Raisi’s to lose. However, one might ask, why are the Supreme Leader and those around him so pre-occupied with installing a hardliner into the Presidency? Going back to the political developments over the last decade, it is because the clerical establishment feels the regime’s legitimacy is being challenged to an unprecedented degree, and given the demographic changes the country has seen over the last forty years, the regime’s base of political support is not as demographically strong as it once was. In short, there is a nearly existential threat to the regime’s existence. The fear underlying the Supreme Leaders’ political calculations is that the Khomeinist Revolution of 1979 may be fatally undermined by another reformist or moderate President. It would be reasonable to say that the desire among Iranians to live in as repressive a theocratic state, where civil liberties and political freedoms are so heavily curtailed, is not strong.
Large segments of Iran’s population, especially those born after the Revolution and who live in cities demand greater freedoms and engagement with the outside world. Given this reality, Ayatollah Khamenei has made the strategic decision to utilize the power of the state to bar any candidate who can cater to this segment of the population from seeking the second most powerful post in the country (though there are questions if Mr. Hemmati can indeed be a voice for moderate and pro-reform Iranians). Despite the risks of popular anger over the lack of ideological diversity in this election, for reasons of mere survival, the Supreme Leader appears prepared to take the risk of strong-arming his favored candidate, Mr. Raisi into the President’s chair. Any popular blowback to cementing hardline rule in Iran, even in the short term is worth the cost, compared to the regime’s “revolutionary spirit” from being undermined or worse, overthrown by an angry, vengeful populace.
Conclusion
The Presidential election of 2021 comes at a pivotal time for Iran, the Middle East, and the entire world. The election result on June 18th will not just affect the broader region, but indeed the world. The election results will have downstream effects on the JCPOA negotiations, where apart from Iran, its signatories are all non-Middle Eastern powers. The current frontrunner, Ebrahim Raisi has not said he would scrap the nuclear deal wholesale, but one can expect that his conditions for the West removing sanctions would likely be non-starters in Washington and in European capitals. Therefore, if the P5 and representatives from the Rouhani Administration are unable to reach a deal before August 3rd (the day the new President takes office), and the U.S does not re-enter the agreement, it is likely that the region will enter a new period of volatility. Though Mr. Raisi has stated he wants to smooth relations with Iran’s neighbors (those comments were mainly directed at Riyadh and Abu Dhabi), it remains to be seen whether a policy of regional rapprochement will extend to deepened engagement with the West.
While hope springs eternal, it would appear less than likely that a Raisi Administration will seek to reduce tensions with the U.S and Europe, because the regime’s survival strategy continues to depend on using the West as a bogeyman. Considering that the U.S withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, it is in hardliners political interest to constantly highlight that fact, as they stated from the signing of the nuclear deal that the U.S could not be trusted to keep its end of the deal. In short, Mr. Raisi and the Supreme Leader will continue to claim they were vindicated in predicting the U.S would renege on its commitments under the JCPOA, and will be in no rush to normalize relations. Challenging times await the Iranian people and countries that have an interest in the security of Iran and the wider region.
