TEHRAN, IRAN - APRIL 14 : Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (L) registers his candidacy for Iran's upcoming presidential elections at the interior ministry on April 14, 2017. Rouhani, the driving force behind a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, registered to run for re-election which will be held on 19 May. (Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)[/caption]
by Ahmed Taher*
On May 19, Tehran will hold its first presidential elections following the Nuclear Deal it signed with the West, including the United States, and the 12th since 1979. Every four years the country holds presidential elections and the results are known in advance due of the mechanisms of the Iranian political system.
The elections remain under the control of the only cleric who represents the Iranian Republic, the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. Notably, they coincide with the supplementary elections for the 10th session of the Shura Council in four constituencies and with the fifth session of the elections of the municipal Islamic councils of cities and villages, which, unlike the presidential elections, are not monitored by the Guardian Council.
In fact, despite the large number of candidates running for the presidential elections, (The number of those who registered for the nomination has reached 1636, including 137 women) they will all be subject to the eligibility and competence examination system, represented by the Guardian Council, which is controlled by conservatives who are loyal to the Supreme Leader. This means that the candidates will be filtered based on unclear and unspecified means.
There is no professional or objective criteria to accept or exclude any candidate, which demonstrates one of the levels of deception in the fake democracy boasted by Tehran. In Iran, pro-government media cannot discuss the large number of people who are allowed to submit their candidacy papers while the matter remains governed by the Supreme Leader, who excludes more than 99% of the applicants to limit competition among the candidates.
This indicates that the Iranian electoral system is “custodial”, which means it exercises its custodianship over the citizens who, according to the perception of the regime, cannot determine the best the candidate.
Custodianship over the Iranian citizen is not limited to the electoral process, it is the essence of religious state in Tehran. Clerics practice their custodianship on Iranians in all aspects of their lives as if they are underaged and unqualified to take on the responsibility of managing their own affairs independently.
Away from the assessment of the electoral process that is held every four years, many questions are raised regarding the upcoming presidential election. Most significantly: What are the odds of Hassan Rouhani and Ebrahim Raisi winning the election? How will the elections affect Iran's foreign policy?
These questions can be answered in three main parts.
Firstly, the internal political and economic environment
This represents the biggest challenge facing the candidates and can be summed up in two dimensions:
1 - The internal political tensions and conflicts among members of the ruling religious elite.
- On October 16 2016, The Supreme Leader issued an 18-point election policy titled “Public Policies in Iranian Elections.” This was the first time Ali Khamenei issued such election-related orders since he became the supreme leader in 1988.
One of the most notable articles in the list, article 16, stipulates: “Preventing armed forces and the three forces (parliament, judiciary and government), including ministries and their affiliated bodies, security agencies and intelligence, institutions, organs, government organizations and public bodies from entering the alignments and electoral blocs and siding with the candidates.”
The list also included: “Auditing electoral campaign financing and verifying sources of licensed and unlicensed funds and the transparency of funds. Preventing the address of issues that promote national and sectarian discrimination in election campaigns as well as prohibiting bribery and the use of threats or promises outside the legal framework,” which reflects the extent to which there is an internal conflict among the Iranian parties seeking to extend their influence on the Iranian citizens and depriving them of the power to shape their own future.
-The divergence in attitudes toward crucial matters such as the Nuclear Deal created an internal division between the supporters and the opposition which represents a challenge for President Hassan Rouhani, who failed to achieve any of his electoral promises, particularly at political and legal levels. The policy of repression of dissidents has continued with the imposition of house arrests on the leaders of the protest movement, who rejected the results of the presidential elections in 2009 (Mir Hossein Mousavi, Zahra Rahnoud and Mehdi Karroubi), and interference by the Revolutionary Guards and the judiciary in the executive branch have increased. Moreover, death penalties continued significantly as the latest reports issued by the United Nations on human rights affairs indicates that between 241 and 253 people were executed in Iran during the period from January 1, 2016 and the third week of July, 2016. According to a report by the “Reporters without Borders” organization, there are at least 900 political prisoners and prisoners of conscience and 38 journalists and reporters in Iranian jails.
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TEHRAN, IRAN - FEBRUARY 26: Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei casts the first ballot in key elections for Parliament and the Assembly of Experts in Tehran, Iran, on February 26, 2016.(Photo by Scott Peterson/Getty Images)[/caption]
- The fight for posts, specifically the post of the Supreme Leader, as the battle between the conservatives and the moderates rages over who will succeed Ali Khamenei, who suffers from a late stage of prostate cancer. Notably, on April 6, 2017, the conservative party announced its list of five candidates for the presidential elections, forming a new alliance, the “Popular Front of Islamic Revolution Forces,” which was comprised of Ebrahim Raisi; Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who came second in the presidential elections in 2013; Parviz Fattah; and former deputies Alireza Zakani and Mehrdad Bazrpash.
-Ahmadinejad submitting his candidacy papers despite initially announcing that he was formally backing a former deputy, Hamid Baghaeid, and defying an edict from the country’s supreme leader not to stand for election. This came as a surprise to everyone and it reflects not only the conflict between the conservative and moderate parties but also the conflict within the conservative party itself which Ahmadinejad is a member of. Ahmadinejad was disqualified by the Guardian Council from running in the election on 20 May 2017.
2- The deterioration of the economic and social environment.
It is true that the conclusion of the nuclear agreement in April, 2015 reduced the Western restrictions on Tehran and led to the revival of economic sectors, including the oil sector. However, it was a limited recovery due to low oil prices despite the fact that Iranian oil production hit its highest level since 1980, reaching 4,150,000 barrels; yet, the accumulation of economic problems and Iran’s huge expenditures in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have meant that economic conditions are exhausted, as evidenced by a number indicators. Most notably:
- The government’s debt to economic institutions has exceeded $100 billion dollars, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance. Moreover, the government and government institutions owe around 62 trillion Toman to the Central Bank and the value of their debts to the General Organization for Social Insurances reached 110 trillion Toman, according to the Central Bank of Iran.
-The number of unemployed reached between 5 to 7 million people. The percentage of unemployed university graduates reached 50%, and the unemployment rate among women university graduates reached 40%, according to the Research Centre of the Iranian Parliament.
-The Inflation rate hit 8.7% in October, 2016. Two thirds of Iran’s population live under the relative poverty line, 15 million Iranians live in extreme poverty and more than 10 million live under the poverty line, and suffer from malnutrition, according to the Iranian Central Bank.
-The number of working children under the age of 15 is around 3,000 while the number of people who sleep on the streets ranges from 15 to 17,000, with children constituting 1% and women constituting 5 to 10%, according to an announcement by the Iranian Social Welfare Organization.
Thus, it is clear that Iran’s internal environment is suffering from numerous issues which present great challenges to whoever wins the elections.
Secondly, the most prominent candidates in the presidential election:
Outgoing Iranian President Hassan Rouhani:
In his 68th year, he made a great effort to maintain the alliance between moderates and reformers, which led him to win in 2013. He managed to conclude a nuclear deal with major powers to end a crisis of more than 12 years and lift part of Western sanctions on his country.
Ebrahim Raisi:
The 56-year-old is a member of the conservative camp and a close associate of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who appointed him in 2016 as the head of a powerful charitable organization. Raisi is a cleric who spent several years in the judiciary as the country’s attorney general during the period between 2014 and 2016 and lacks political experience.
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TEHRAN, IRAN - APRIL 14 : Iranian cleric and head of the Imam Reza charitable foundation, Ebrahim Raisi delivers a speech after registering his candidacy for the upcoming presidential elections on April 14, 2017 in Tehran, Iran. Raisi who served as Deputy Prosecutor in the committee responsible for the 1988 executions submited his application for candidacy for Iran's presidential elections which will be held on May 19th. (Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)[/caption]
Hamid Baghaei:
The 48-year-old was the vice president during Ahmadinejad’s rule and used to be the Head of Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization. Baghaei was imprisoned for seven months in 2015, but his charges were not disclosed publicly.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf:
Tehran’s current Mayor, 55, and one of the five candidates chosen by the conservatives to represent them in the presidential elections. He lost the elections twice and came third in the presidential elections in 2013.
Eshaq Jahangiri:
The first Vice-President of Hassan Rouhani's government, 60, he is very close to Rouhani and always defends his achievements. His candidacy may be a “rehearsal” for the elections in 2021 and may also be a possible alternative if the Guardian Council does not approve Rouhani’s nomination.
Thirdly, Iranian foreign Policy after the presidential elections:
Some people claim that the victory of any of the candidates in the presidential race will impact Iran’s foreign policy regionally and globally, but this is not true and there are two ways that this can be proved.
The first is that under President Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian foreign policy remained intrusive and aggressive in in Syria and Yemen, and before that in Iraq, in addition to its continued interference in the internal affairs of the Gulf States; Bahrain being the most obvious example.
The second piece of evidence is that the parliamentary elections and the Assembly of Experts elections, which elects the Supreme Leader, was won by the reformist movement of President Hassan Rouhani defeating the conservative movement, which enjoyed a parliamentary majority for three successive rounds. This did not have a significant impact on the Iranian foreign policy.
Thus, we conclude that Iran’s foreign policy since the domination of the religious system for nearly 40 years, has been controlled by the main decision-making circles of the Iranian regime represented by the Supreme Leader and some of the institutions affiliated with him.
*Ahmed Taher is a visiting researcher at the Center for Strategic Studies of the Presidency of the Republic of Azerbaijan
