Iranian social networks—from the diaspora, but also from accounts within the country—were filled with memes on Sunday after the announcement of the disappearance of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisí’s helicopter. Even before his death was confirmed, many Iranian users of the social network #Iranishappy (Iran is happy). Other of those tweets were neither ironic nor funny: they reproduced images of Yina Mahsa Amini, the young Kurdish woman whose death in police custody, after being arrested for wearing the veil incorrectly, sparked the latest protests against the regime in 2022, or of other Iranians died in the repression of these demonstrations, in which crimes against humanity were committed, according to a United Nations fact-finding mission. At least 550 people died at the hands of Iranian security forces and paramilitaries and another 60,000 were detained. So far, nine men have been hanged in connection with those protests.
With this background of evident rejection of figures like that of the late president by a sector of a population that is also impoverished – the last official inflation figure was 56% – and in the midst of confrontation with Israel, exacerbated by the Gaza war , which culminated on April 13 when Iran launched an unprecedented attack against Israeli territory, Raisí’s death leads the regime to hold elections to elect a new president when abstention records have been broken in recent elections. This is provided for in the country’s Constitution in the event of the death of the head of the Executive branch. In the legislative elections on March 1, only 41% of the 61 million potential voters cast their vote.
In Iran, elections are not synonymous with democracy, but rather a mechanism of competition and distribution of power between elites and factions, all of whom support, to a greater or lesser extent, the Islamic Republic. Since Raisí’s arrival to the presidency, in 2021, with the votes of only a third of the electorate, that power is almost completely in the hands of the so-called “principalists”, the ultra-conservatives who oppose any reform and defend blind obedience to the Supreme leader.
The only challenge in the last electoral events in Iran has been to avoid a high abstention, since the results are known in advance due to the authorities’ veto of all candidates who are not considered loyal enough. In the March elections, only 30 moderates or reformists – supporters of greater openness of the Islamic regime – were authorized to go to the polls after passing the prior screening of the Guardian Council, while the vast majority of these candidates were disqualified. The Council of Guardians is an institution made up of 12 members, half appointed directly by Ayatollah Khamenei, while its other six members are elected, after approval by Parliament, for another position also directly appointed by the supreme leader: the head of power. judicial.
That institution will also be the one that decides who can be a candidate and who cannot in the next presidential elections.
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In this system without democracy, abstention is one of the few ways that citizens have to show their rejection of their leaders, in addition to street demonstrations or criticism on social networks. Hence, the low turnout at the polls is interpreted as a reproach that delegitimizes the Iranian political system. Above all, because the Islamic Republic of Iran had traditionally used high electoral participation in the past, sometimes greater than 70% of the electorate, as a demonstration of popular support.
The challenge of preventing a participation figure even worse than that 41% of legislative elections from undermining the credibility of the regime and Raisí’s future successor is even more pressing after the blow caused by the abrupt death of the head of the Executive. The reason is the need to avoid an image of fragility of institutions. Raisí was not only the president of the country, but one of the names that was mentioned to succeed Khamenei, who turned 85 in April, and whose replacement after his death – the event that could truly mark the future of Iran or cause a vacuum of power—is now somewhat more up in the air as that crossroads approaches inexorably.
“We will never know to what extent Raisí was likely to succeed Khamenei, but if he was truly being prepared to be a serious contender, then that investment [del régimen] “It has evaporated,” Rouzbeh Parsi, head of the Middle East and North Africa program at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs analysis center, emphasizes in several WhatsApp messages.
From Tehran, journalist Fereshteh Sadeghi assures, on the contrary, that the deaths of the president and his entourage will not “have serious consequences.” “Iranian politics does not depend on specific people,” she says, then discarding “the usefulness of discussing the succession of the supreme leader.” The deceased president “was a candidate” to succeed Khamenei, but “no one knew if he was going to be his successor,” she says.
Anniversary of the protests
Raisí’s re-election, in the presidential elections that were to have been held in the summer of 2025, was also considered certain. With his disappearance, that certainty of continuity of an ultra-conservative loyalist in the second political position of the Islamic Republic has also disappeared. The next elections to choose the successor of the ill-fated president, whose date is unknown, but which should take place within a period of 50 days, will be held already in the summer, shortly before the second anniversary of Amini’s death, on September 16 of 2022.
The proximity of that anniversary is another element of uncertainty. When, in 2023, one year passed since the death of the young Kurdish woman, the Iranian security forces repressed any attempt at a demonstration or commemoration, fearing that this anniversary would revive the protests, a situation that could be brought forward this year due to the electoral call. The tweets that, since this Sunday, once again remember the young Kurdish woman to celebrate the death of Raisí, show that many Iranians do not forget the icon of resistance that Yina Mahsa Amini has become.
Despite this, “the Iranian regime is not at a turning point. It is stable,” says Rouzbeh Parsi. “The big question now [de cara a las nuevas elecciones] “It is whether conservatives can unite around a single candidate for president or argue among themselves again, since they normally only agree to marginalize reformists and silence society’s opposition,” this specialist emphasizes.
Meanwhile, the Government of Iran was quick to state this Monday that Raisí’s death “will not entail the slightest disturbance in the administration” of the nation. From London, in a conversation on WhatsApp, the Iranian human rights lawyer Shadi Sadr recalls that, despite the attempts of the Iranian authorities to show normality and continuity, the death of the president has once again publicly surfaced the discontent of the population.
“Many Iranians have expressed joy and happiness at the news of Raisi’s death in various ways, including fireworks in some cities such as Saqqez, the hometown of Yina Mahsa Amini, and incessant honking on streets and highways. These reactions are largely due to Raisí’s history of human rights abuses and her participation in the 1988 massacre of thousands of political prisoners, explains this lawyer. She herself was sentenced in 2010 in absentia in Iran to six years in prison and 74 lashes. for defending Iranian women who had been sentenced to stoning or other corporal punishments that International Law considers torture.
“A Kurd from Saqqez assured this Monday: ‘Your day of mourning is our day of celebration,’ summarizes this Iranian lawyer from her exile.
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