A reformist candidate critical of many of Iran’s government policies, including the mandatory headscarf law, will compete next week against hardline conservatives in the country’s presidential election, Iran’s Interior Ministry announced Saturday. The runoff follows a special vote called after the death last month of the previous leader, Ebrahim Raisi, in a helicopter crash.
The second round of voting, which will pit reformist Masoud Pezeshkian against Saeed Jalili, an ultraconservative former nuclear negotiator, will take place on July 5. , both of which are competing for conservative votes. Iranian law requires the winner to receive more than 50 percent of all votes.
A majority of Iranians, 60 percent, according to the interior ministry, did not vote on Friday, in what analysts and aides to the candidates said was an act of protest against the government for ignoring their calls for meaningful change.
Prominent Iranian economist Siamak Ghassemi said on social media that the voters sent a clear message. “In one of the most competitive presidential elections, where reformists and conservatives came to the field in full force, 60 percent of the majority of Iran ended up with reformists and conservatives.”
Iran faces many challenges, from domestic unrest to international tensions. Its economy is booming due to punishing Western sanctions, citizens’ freedoms are increasing and foreign policy is being shaped by hardline leaders.
The campaign, which initially included six candidates – five conservatives and one reformist – was significant because of the frank discussion of the issues and the public willingness to attack the status quo. In speeches, televised debates and roundtable discussions, the candidates criticized government policies and derided official assessments of Iran’s economic prospects as dangerous delusions.
Public dissatisfaction with the new president’s ability to effect change is reflected in the low voter turnout, a historic low for presidential elections and even lower than the reported 41 percent in parliamentary elections earlier this year. The low numbers would be a blow to the country’s ruling clerics, who make voter turnout a sign of perceived legitimacy and hope to win 50 percent of the electorate.
In the official results announced on Saturday, Dr. Pezeshkian led with 10.4 million votes (42.4 percent), followed by Mr. Jalili with 9.4 million (38.6 percent). A third conservative candidate, Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, the current parliament speaker and former mayor of Tehran, is a distant third at 3.3 million (13.8 percent).
It remains unclear whether the runoff between two candidates representing different ends of the political spectrum will inspire more voters to come out, while many Iranians see the candidate as part of a system they want to reject wholesale.
“This will be a very difficult and challenging week,” said Mohammad Mobin, an analyst in Tehran who works on Dr. Pezeshkian, on Saturday. “To get voters out, we have to be strategic.” He added, speaking of conservatives, “People think there is no difference between us and them.”
Simple math will show that Mr. Jalili will exceed 50 percent if he gets Mr. Ghailibaf’s vote. But in the previous poll, many who voted for Mr. Ghalibaf would not support Mr. Jalili. And Dr. Pezeshkian may be taking votes from those who fear Jalili’s presidential prospects.
In a neighborhood north of Tehran on Saturday, a group of people discussed the election results, and the prospect of a runoff, over coffee. One of them, Farzad Jafari, 36, predicted a higher turnout in the next election. He and others are also debating whether Mr. Jalili will be able to consolidate the conservative vote in a head-to-head contest, or if more voters will turn out to support the reformist options offered by Dr. Pezeshkian.
Mr Jafari said many people who, like him, sat out Friday’s vote may be drawn back for another round. “I don’t want to vote at all because they are excluded who should have been in the race, they are usually reformers” he said. “But more people will vote next in the next round and those who cast blank votes, or those who did not vote will come.”
In addition to domestic pressure, Iran’s leadership also faces unstable times in the region: Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas, an Iranian-backed militant group, and the escalation of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah as Iran’s two proxy forces against Israel. sworn enemy.
Despite the campaign’s critical rhetoric, the candidates are all members of Iran’s political establishment, approved to run by a committee of Islamic scholars and jurists. All but one, Dr. Pezeshkian, considered a conservative close to the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Mr. Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator, is likely to be the candidate closest to Mr. Khamenei. He leads the right-wing Paydari party and represents the country’s toughest ideological views when it comes to domestic and foreign policy. Mr. Jalili has said that he does not believe that Iran needs to negotiate with the United States for economic success.
Dr. Pezeshkian is a heart surgeon and Iran-Iraq war veteran who served in Parliament and as Iran’s health minister. After her husband died in a car accident, she raised her other children as a single father and never remarried. This and his identity as an Azeri, one of Iran’s ethnic minorities, has endeared him to many voters.
Dr. Pezeshkian is supported by the reformist former president, Mohammad Khatami, and he has expressed openness to nuclear negotiations with the West, framing the debate as an economic issue with the main goal of escaping. economic sanctions through nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
After a bitter public spat, Mr. Ghalibaf issued a statement on Monday endorsing Mr. Jalili and asking voters to do the same to ensure victory for the conservative camp.
Stacking the deck to increase the chances of a conservative victory, Mr Khamenei signaled his desire for a second in command whose prospects reflect his own and who would continue the agenda of Ebrahim Raisi, the hardline president who was killed last month in a helicopter crash. accident near the border with Azerbaijan.
The low voter turnout reflects widespread apathy among Iranians, whose frustration has grown with the government’s crackdown on protesters demanding change and an inadequate response to the number of sanctions that have crippled the country’s economy for decades, reducing purchasing power. Iranians.
The most recent anti-government demonstrations – and subsequent crackdowns – were prompted in particular by the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022, who died in police custody after being arrested for wrongly wearing the obligatory hijab, or hijab.
In order to consider the unpopular hijab law, the candidates are all trying to get rid of the methods used by the country’s morality policy to enforce it, including violence, arrests and fines.
Even if the new president is able to fulfill the hijab mandate, as Mr. Khatami and the moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, did during his tenure. it is impossible for the law to be repealed.
That is largely because Iran is a theocracy with a parallel system of government, where elected bodies are overseen by an appointed council made up of Islamic scholars and jurists. And the main state policy on nuclear, military and foreign affairs is decided by the supreme leader of the country, Mr. Khamenei.
The president’s role focuses on domestic policy and economic issues, but the position is still influential. Mr. Rouhani, for example, played an active role in forging the 2015 deal with Western powers in which Iran agreed to scale back its nuclear program in exchange for easing sanctions.
The Trump administration withdrew the United States from the deal in 2018, and Iran began producing uranium. Beyond tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program, the United States and Iran have in the past year moved closer to direct confrontation as they compete for influence in the Middle East.
In Gaza, the war between Israel, its US ally, and Hamas has drawn the United States, Iran and Iran’s foreign proxies into closer conflict. Iran sees the use of the group as a way to expand its power, but many citizens, especially in the cities, do not understand the value of the leadership’s strategy and believe that the economy will recover only through continued diplomacy and the lifting of sanctions. is in a Third World country and we are sitting on top of wealth,” said Vahid Arafati, 38, a coffee shop owner in Tehran, after voting on Friday. “For example, Arab countries benefit from their wealth, but politically we cannot got nothing.”
Asked why he voted if he didn’t expect much change, he said, “Maybe I have a little bit hope.” After a pause, he added: “Isn’t it good to have a little hope?”
Leily Nikounazar contributed reporting.
