A reformist candidate critical of many Iranian government policies, including the mandatory headscarf law, will compete next week against a radical conservative in a presidential runoff election, Iran’s Interior Ministry said Saturday . This second round follows a special vote called after the death last month of the former leader, Ebrahim Raisi, in a helicopter accident.
The runoff election, which pits reformist Masoud Pezeshkian against ultraconservative Saeed Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator, will take place on July 5. The runoff is partly due to low voter turnout and the presence of three main candidates, two of whom were vying for the conservative vote. Iranian law requires the winner to obtain more than 50% of the votes cast.
The majority of Iranians, 60 percent, according to the official Iranian news agency, did not vote Friday, which analysts and candidates’ aides said was largely an act of protest against the government for ignored their demands for meaningful change.
A prominent Iranian economist, Siamak Ghassemi, said on social media that voters were sending a clear message. “In one of the most competitive presidential elections, where reformists and conservatives came into play with all their might, a 60 percent majority of Iranians are done with reformists and conservatives.”
Iran faces a range of challenges, from domestic unrest to international tensions. Its economy is collapsing under Western sanctions, its citizens’ freedoms are increasingly restricted, and its foreign policy is largely shaped by radical leaders.
The campaign, which initially included six candidates (five Conservatives and one Reform), was notable for the frankness with which these issues were addressed and the public’s willingness to challenge the status quo. In speeches, televised debates and panel discussions, candidates criticized government policies and ridiculed optimistic official assessments of Iran’s economic prospects as harmful illusions.
Public dissatisfaction with a new president’s ability to deliver change was reflected in the paltry turnout, a historic low for presidential elections and even lower than the reported level of 41 percent The results of this year’s parliamentary elections were poor. The low turnout is a blow to the ruling clerics, who have made voter turnout an indicator of the perceived legitimacy of the vote and had hoped to achieve a 50 percent turnout.
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 speaker of Parliament and former mayor of Tehran, comes a distant third with 3.3 million (13.8%).
It’s unclear whether a runoff between two candidates representing different ends of the political spectrum will encourage more voters to come out, when large numbers of Iranians view the candidates as part of a system they want to reject outright.
“This is going to be a very difficult and challenging week,” Mohammad Mobin, a Tehran-based analyst who worked on Dr. Pezeshkian’s campaign, said Saturday. “To get voters out, we have to be strategic.” He added, speaking of the conservatives: “People think there is no difference between us and them.”
A simple calculation would suggest that Mr. Jalili would surpass 50 percent if he were to win Mr. Ghailibaf’s vote. But in a previous poll, many of those who voted for Mr. Ghalibaf said they would not support Mr. Jalili. And Dr. Pezeshkian could win the votes of those who dread the prospect of a Jalili presidency.
On Saturday, in a neighborhood in northern Tehran, a group of men discussed the election results and the prospects of the second round over coffee. One of them, Farzad Jafari, 36, expected a higher turnout in the next election. He and others also wondered whether Mr. Jalili would be able to unify the conservative vote in a direct election, or whether even more voters would emerge to support the reformist option proposed by Dr. Pezeshkian.
Mr. Jafari said he believed many of those, like him, who did not vote on Friday could well be recalled in the second round. “I didn’t want to vote at all because they excluded those who should have been running, they were mainly reformers,” he said. “But more people will vote next time in the next round and those who voted blank or didn’t vote will come. »
In addition to domestic pressures, Iran’s leaders also face a particularly volatile time in the region: Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas, an Iran-backed militant group, and escalating skirmishes between Israel and Hezbollah pit two of Iran’s proxy forces against Israel, its arch-enemy.
Despite the critical tone of the campaign, the candidates were all members of Iran’s political establishment, approved by a committee of Muslim clerics and jurists. All but one, Dr. Pezeshkian, were considered conservatives close to the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Mr. Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator, is probably Mr. Khamenei’s closest candidate. He leads the far-right Paydari party and represents the country’s hardest-line ideological views on domestic and foreign policy. Mr. Jalili said he did not think Iran needed to negotiate with the United States to succeed economically.
Dr. Pezeshkian is a heart surgeon and veteran of the Iran-Iraq War who served in Parliament and as Iran’s Minister of Health. After his wife died in a car accident, he raised his other children as a single father and never remarried. This and his identity as an Azeri, one of Iran’s ethnic minorities, won him the affection of many voters.
Dr. Pezeshkian was supported by a reform-minded former president, Mohammad Khatami, and he has declared himself open to nuclear negotiations with the West, framing the debate as an economic issue with the ultimate goal of escaping nuclear power. economic sanctions because of its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
After a bitter public row, Mr. Ghalibaf issued a statement on Saturday supporting Mr. Jalili and asked his voters to do the same to ensure victory for the conservative camp.
By stacking the dice to increase a conservative’s chances of victory, Mr. Khamenei signaled his desire for a second-in-command whose perspectives reflect his own and who would pursue the agenda of the Ebrahim Raisithe hardline president killed last month in a helicopter crash near the border with Azerbaijan.
The low turnout reflects widespread apathy among Iranians, whose frustration has been intensified by the government’s violent crackdown on protesters demanding change and its inadequate response to the toll decades of sanctions have taken on the economy. of the country, reducing the purchasing power of Iranians.
The most recent anti-government protests – and the crackdown that followed – were largely sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death in 2022died in police custody after being arrested for wearing her obligatory headscarf, or hijab, incorrectly.
In a nod to the unpopularity of the hijab law, the candidates all sought to distance themselves from the methods the country’s moral polity uses to enforce it, which include violence, arrests and fines.
Even if a new president could relax enforcement of the headscarf mandate, as Mr. Khatami and a moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, did during their terms, the law is unlikely to be overturned.
This is largely because Iran is a theocracy with parallel systems of governance, in which elected bodies are overseen by appointed councils of Muslim dignitaries and jurists. The state’s major nuclear, military and foreign policies are decided by the country’s supreme leader, Mr. Khamenei.
The president’s role focuses on domestic policy and economic issues, but it remains an influential position. Mr. Rouhani, for example, played an active role in crafting the 2015 deal with Western powers, in which Iran agreed to curtail its nuclear program in exchange for an easing of sanctions.
The Trump administration withdrew the United States from that deal in 2018, and Iran has since resumed enriching uranium. Beyond tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program, the United States and Iran have moved closer and closer to direct confrontation over the past year in their rivalry for influence in the Middle East.
In Gaza, the war between U.S. ally Israel and Hamas has drawn the United States, Iran and its foreign proxies into more intense conflict. Iran sees the use of these groups as a way to expand its power, but many citizens, especially in cities, see little benefit in their leaders’ strategy and believe the economy will not recover. only thanks to sustained diplomacy and the lifting of sanctions. “We are in a third world country and we have a lot of wealth,” Vahid Arafati, 38, a cafe owner in Tehran, said after voting Friday. “For example, the Arab states benefit from their wealth, but with our policies we cannot achieve anything. »
When asked why he voted if he didn’t expect much change, he replied: “Maybe I got a little ” Hope “. After a pause, he added, “Isn’t it good to have a little hope?” »
Leily Nikounazar contributed reporting.
