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Presidential elections will take place in Iran on Friday. They are the first since the mass protests in 2022 – Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could lose political power.
Tehran – The early presidential elections in Iran are a mood test. After the Ebrahim Raisi plane crash In May, Mohhamed Mochber took office on an interim basis, and now head of state Ayatollah Ali Khamenei needs an elected president again, also to legitimize his political power and his brutal crackdown on critics.
Shortly before the presidential elections, Khamenei is therefore calling on Iranians to vote. In March, Iran’s parliamentary elections recorded a voter turnout of just 41 percent, the lowest since the founding of the republic in 1979. Conservative candidates dominated after a majority of reformists were excluded, but the low turnout shocked the Ayatollah.
Opposition in Iran calls for boycott of presidential elections
“People’s participation is the essence of the Islamic Republic,” Khamenei said in a speech. “In every election where voter turnout was low, the enemies launched their verbal attacks.” The Ayatollah is currently facing a dissatisfied people with 40 percent inflation and high unemployment. The political opposition is calling for a boycott of the elections. Many Iranians doubt that the next President, who will essentially act as the elected factotum of the supreme leadercan bring about any significant change.
Unsurprisingly, there were calls for another election boycott, including from inmates of the notorious Evin prison in Tehran. Narges Mohammadi, Nobel Prize winner and human rights activist who has been imprisoned since 2010, called the elections a sham election. In a letter from prison, she wrote, according to IranWire: “How can one, while with one hand one holds swords, gallows, guns and prisons against the people, with the other hand one places a ballot box before the same people?”
Hundreds of teachers and activists have signed a boycott letter, and many Iranians have expressed their opposition to the vote in messages on Twitter/X with the hashtag ElectionCircus. “Participating in the elections, even assuming a victory by a reformist candidate, is futile and offers no solution to current problems,” the letter said. “It risks strengthening the legitimacy of the regime and increasing the repression of dissent and protests.”
Six candidates for the presidency in Iran would be pre-screened by Ayatollah
Six candidates will run for the election, who will be vetted in advance by Khamenei and his Guardian Council of clerics and lawyers. They all declared their support for Khamenei and his strict Islamic regime and would otherwise not have been allowed to run. They all promised to improve the economy, which has been crippled by Western sanctions, and to fight the rampant corruption in the country.
Massoud Peseschkian, Iran’s health minister from 2001 to 2005, is considered a moderate reformer. The fact that Khamenei allowed him to run at all is proof that he is under political pressure. However, Khamenei urged his supporters to avoid choosing a candidate who believes “that all roads to progress lead through the United States,” a possible rebuke for Peseschkian, who favors diplomacy as a means of easing sanctions.
Nevertheless, things are moving in Iran. The fact that the protests for women’s rights in 2022 are still resonating is demonstrated by the promise of all six candidates to no longer enforce the obligation to cover up with violence. In terms of foreign policy, the presidential election in Iran will have little impact. Negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program, for example, are the Ayatollah’s business. (lm)
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