July 1, 2024
Forty days after
the passing of Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash, the
Islamic Republic held snap elections on Friday, 28 June, to vote for a new head
of the administrative branch. With no single candidate receiving a mandatory 51
percent of votes cast, however, the two leading candidates will now advance to
a runoff poll on 5 July.
Conservative
candidate Saeed Jalili and reformist-leaning Masoud Pezeshkian lead political
factions that are not merely rivals but fierce adversaries, epitomizing the
deep political divide within the country.
Voter apathy
reaches historic high
According to
Iran’s Interior Ministry, 61,452,321 Iranians inside and outside the country
were eligible to vote. However, only 24,535,185 cast their ballots, resulting
in a turnout of approximately 40 percent. This figure is slightly lower than
the 40.6 percent turnout in the March 2024 parliamentary vote and marks the
lowest participation rate in the Islamic Republic’s history.
According to
figures released by the Interior Ministry, Pezeshkian received 10,415,991
votes, accounting for 42 percent of the ballots, while Jalili garnered
9,473,298 votes or 38.6 percent. The current Majlis Speaker Mohammad-Bagher
Ghalibaf, another frontrunner, obtained 3,383,340 votes, or 13 percent. Former
Intelligence Ministry director Mustafa Pour-Mohammadi earned 206,397 votes,
fewer than the number of invalid ballots.
The modest
turnout has raised many questions about voter apathy, with most observers and
analysts blaming the government for failing to satisfy the electorate’s needs
and expectations.
Historically,
the highest participation rate in Iran was 98.2 percent during the 1979
referendum for establishing the Islamic Republic. The second highest was the
controversial 2009 presidential election, with an 84.8 percent turnout.
That election
was marred by unsubstantiated claims of fraud by the losing side, the
reformists, who supported Mir-Hussein Mousawi of the Green Movement against the
incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. These claims and subsequent protests
led to eight months of unrest in Iran.
Polling opinions
or crafting opinions?
During the
17-day campaign, Persian-language social media, particularly X, was flooded
with opinion polls lacking clear sources. The main polling entities in Iran
include ISPA, the polling arm of the Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA), the
Islamic Republic Broadcasting Organization (IRIB), the Ministry of
Intelligence, the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, and the Ministry of
Interior.
These
institutions conducted surveys regularly during the 17-day campaigning period,
and the results were shared with candidates and their teams. Occasionally,
these results were leaked to the media without citing their sources.
A new phenomenon
in this election cycle was the proliferation of surveys attributed to
universities or unknown organizations, leading to conflicting results.
Additionally, some self-proclaimed analysts began interpreting Google Trends.
This mix of
unreliable surveys and the public’s inability to distinguish between fake and
real polls created an atmosphere of distrust, especially after the University
of Tehran denied having a polling center.
Implications of
40 percent voter turnout
As mentioned
above, the unprecedented 40 percent turnout is an important development that
should alarm Iranian authorities.
Given that even
at the highest participation rate in recent memory (84.8 percent in 2009), an
average participation rate of 67.7 percent, and that between 15 and 33 percent
of the population has never voted, it is possible to conclude that up to 30
percent of the population abstained from voting last Friday. This development,
it must be noted, has social, cultural, religious, and economic roots.
Iran’s
difficulties are due to economic mismanagement exacerbated by years of
western-imposed sanctions, financial corruption, and a pervasive sense of
misery and incompetence within the state, which is constantly amplified through
social media and anti-Iran Persian-language media outlets based in foreign
countries and backed by hostile states.
Necessary but
unpopular economic reforms implemented by Raisi’s administration, including
increasing taxes on assets and bank accounts, closing loopholes for tax
evasion, and legally pursuing traders and hedge funds profiteering from market
turbulences, may have further discouraged voter turnout.
The fact that
none of the candidates, except Jalili, presented a clear plan for the future
government, coupled with the short two-week campaign period, uninspiring TV
debates, and a general disregard for controversial issues such as social
freedoms – even by the “reformist” candidate – likely contributed to voter
skepticism and low turnout.
Two candidates,
two visions
Next Friday, 5
July, Iranians will once again have to choose between two mindsets and
worldviews, each representing a significant segment of Iranian society with
considerable differences. Pezeshkian represents the faction that seeks to mend
ties with the west, revive the 2015 nuclear deal, and even establish relations
with the US.
This mindset
advocates a free market, minimizing the role of government, and criticizes
Iran’s “look east” foreign policy and its growing influence in West Asia and
North Africa. Pezeshkian has the support of two former presidents Muhammad
Khatami and Hassan Rouhani, the vocal former foreign minister Javad Zarif, and
numerous members of Rouhani’s administration. He also has the backing of
certain ayatollahs in Qom, various pro-reform media outlets, activists, and
financial groups critical of current economic policies.
Jalili, on the
other hand, has the backing of the traditionally conservative group Jebheh-e-ye
Paydari or “Steadfastness Front,” which secured many seats in the March
parliamentary elections. Unlike Ghalibaf, he lacks the support of the Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), religious eulogists (Maddah), and media
pundits who previously supported Ghalibaf and now favor Pezeshkian.
Despite this,
Jalili has received an endorsement from Ghalibaf, who urged his supporters to
vote for Jalili in a statement:
As I am concerned about the political
faction supportive of Mr Pezeshkian, I ask all revolutionary forces and my
supporters to join hands and prevent the group responsible for the majority of
today’s economic and political woes from reaching power.
With Ghalibaf,
Mohsen Rezaei, and other conservative groups promising to back Jalili and the
reformist camp and former Rouhani luminaries placing their weight behind
Pezeshkian, it is now up to Iranian citizens to make that final decision for
the nation.
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