Two regime loyalists face off in presidential elections with no prospects for change in Iran

Saeed Khalili, the ultra-conservative candidate in the second round of the Iranian presidential elections this Friday, has a reputation as a “living martyr” for the faithful of the Islamic Republic of Iran – he lost a leg in the war with Iraq in the eighties – while for his detractors he is just another repressor. In October 2019, as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, he authorized the repression that crushed protests sparked by the increase in the price of gasoline, according to the Iranian Ministry of Health. the NGO Justice for Iran. At least 300 people were killed, according to Amnesty International, a figure later raised by senior Iranian officials to 1,500. Khalili, a hard-line champion of Iran’s Islamic regime, will not face an ideologically antithetical rival at the polls. The other presidential hopeful, Masoud Pezeshkian, is also a man of the system, albeit a more moderate one. Whoever wins the presidency, this election does not augur a change in a power apparatus in which the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has the final say.

The competition between two men of the regime – both of whom have already cast their votes on Friday – was a certainty, given the undemocratic nature of the elections in Iran and the prior screening of those who aspire to be elected to political posts, a possibility only open to loyalists. This makes the elections practically a mechanism for sharing power among the different factions of supporters of the system. The moderates or reformerswho advocate a limited opening of institutions, had been progressively marginalized from this limited electoral competition in recent years.

The green light for Pezeshkian from the body that authorises candidates, the Guardian Council, came as a surprise. The 69-year-old heart surgeon, former health minister under reformist President Mohamed Khatami in the 2000s, won the first round of the presidential elections called after the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash. He obtained just over 42.5% of the votes. He was followed by the ultra-right Khalili with 38.6% of the votes. Two of the other four candidates, all conservatives, authorised to stand were ruled out; two others had withdrawn.

The reformist’s victory, which some analysts attribute to the division of the conservative vote between Khalili and the other conservative candidates, was, in a certain sense, bitter. Pezeshkian did not surpass the threshold of 50% of the votes that would have given him the presidency, but he did make it to the second round. He also failed to convince the majority of Iranians who have turned their backs on their political system to vote, something that he himself has acknowledged when he stated that “if 61% of voters do not vote,” something “must have been done wrong.” As in every election since 2020, a new record of abstention was broken on June 28: only 39.9% of the 61 million voters went to the polling stations, eight points less than in the 2021 presidential elections, in what is interpreted as yet another demonstration of popular detachment towards a regime whose supreme leader had stated years ago that “every vote is a vote for the Islamic Republic.”

“The inclusion of reformist Pezeshkian, probably in order to increase turnout, failed to halt the downward trend in turnout,” the geopolitical risk consultancy Eurasia Group analysed on Tuesday.

For Iran expert Luciano Zaccara, a professor at the Center for Gulf Studies at Qatar University, “it is difficult to predict” what will happen in this second round, in which, once again, the main challenge is the participation of a population suffering from inflation of more than 40%, with an impoverished middle class, a third of Iranians below the absolute poverty line and a ruling class tainted by corruption.

In the Persian country, a high turnout is usually associated with a reformist vote, which is more critical than the conservative vote, but “this has not always been the case,” Zaccara stresses. “If the turnout goes from 40% to 60%, it does not necessarily mean that all of that vote will support Pezeshkian” and not, at least in part, Khalili.

What cannot be taken for granted is that even if the moderate candidate wins, there will be significant changes, the professor stresses. “It has already been shown that the chances of the reformists being able to implement major changes are practically impossible. Or if they do succeed, they will last until the end of their term. With the Majlis [Parlamento]the Council of Guardians and the Council of Discernment [órgano que media entre los dos anteriores] Governed by various conservative factions, Pezeshkian would have a difficult task to approve any initiative, even in foreign policy.”

In Iran, the president does not have powers comparable to those of the head of government in a democracy. Khamenei has the final say on foreign relations, nuclear negotiations and even the appointment of important ministers.

Low profile

Pezeshkian’s low profile also makes a combative presidency against the power apparatus in Iran unlikely. This candidate, highlights the Spanish-Iranian activist Ryma Sheermohammadi, has multiplied “winks” trying to gather votes among both reformists and conservatives and has made it clear that he does not plan a change of course. He has alluded to a rapprochement with the West with the intention of easing sanctions for the Iranian nuclear program and assured that he opposes the patrols of the unpopular morality police, the body whose agents beat and probably killed, according to the UN, Yina Mahsa Amini, in September 2022.

Regarding this death, which triggered the latest protests against the regime, harshly repressed by the authorities, Pezeshkian said that it was not acceptable “that a young woman was detained for [llevar mal colocado] “The veil was removed and her body returned to her parents.” She later criticised the protesters who took to the streets for shouting against the supreme leader, to whom Pezeshkian has not stopped pledging his loyalty. In an interview during this campaign on state television, she said she was opposed to a male doctor examining a patient.

From Tehran, Farzaneh, the false name of a former political prisoner who relayed a statement to this newspaper through activist Sheermohammadi, explains that, although some analysts assume that the ultra-conservative candidate Khalili is the favourite of Ayatollah Khamenei, in reality, Pezeshkian could be more useful to the regime. The reason is his status as a reformist who would give the authorities a “veneer” of democracy while they continue to “repress the population”. This Thursday, Sharifeh Mohammadi, a well-known trade unionist, was sentenced to death on charges of “treason” for her activism in favour of labour rights.

“Regardless of who wins the second round, it is clear that most Iranians have little faith in the system of government, consider elections a farce and are unlikely to participate even when an obvious reformist [Pezeshkian] is on the ballot,” Eurasia Group’s analysis of Iran highlights.

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