Iran to vote in elections as Supreme Leader’s succession looms

Iran’s government has been seeking to drum up enthusiasm among voters for tightly-controlled elections to choose members of parliament and the assembly that will appoint a successor to the 84-year-old Supreme Leader when he dies.

As Friday’s vote for the Assembly of Experts approaches, together with parliamentary elections, social media videos have circulated showing unexpected scenes: supporters of parliamentary candidates in small towns dancing to loud music at campaign events.

The public display, which would normally be banned, suggested an official attempt to lighten the public mood and encourage voting as the regime seeks to tread a fine line between narrowing the field of candidates and winning popular support.

There was even a rare sign of official tolerance towards women voters choosing not to wear the Islamic headscarf. Hadi Tahan Nazif, the spokesperson for the Guardian Council, a clerical body, said last month when asked whether women without hijabs could vote: “Voting rights have not been denied by any law, and cannot even be taken away by [a] court.”

Mohammad-Sadegh Javadi-Hesar, a reformist politician, said: “I hate to say this, but they are begging for votes. They are doing all they can to persuade the voters, putting aside other concerns for now — including hijab.”

The latest polls by the state television channel suggested national turnout would be 41.5 per cent, while a survey by Ispa, a semi-official polling agency, estimated a turnout of 38.5 per cent.

When President Ebrahim Raisi was elected in 2021, the conservative establishment barred moderates and reformists from within the regime’s ranks from standing, but the restricted choice sent turnout below 50 per cent for the first time in a presidential vote since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, on Wednesday called for a national rather than factional approach to elections. “Those who love their country, people and security should know that everyone will suffer from weak elections,” he said.

Despite the gestures of lenience, this year’s elections are set to be highly constrained, and in the run-up to voting, key political groupings have been in disarray.

“The Islamic republic is unwilling to tolerate any risks in the succession process; consequently, individuals with differing views from the ruling hardliners will be barred from the assembly,” said a moderate political analyst.

All candidates have been vetted by the Guardian Council. Many pro-reform candidates were barred from legislative elections and several prominent figures were prevented from standing for the assembly, including centrist former president Hassan Rouhani.

The new cohort will serve an eight-year term on the Assembly of Experts and may choose a successor to the current head of state, Khamenei, a staunch old-guard revolutionary.

Raisi, also a hardliner, at the weekend flew in a commercial airliner to campaign in South Khorasan, an eastern province, where he was approved as the sole candidate for the assembly from that area.

A token additional candidate was later added to the race — but Raisi’s rival, Hassan Rouhbakhsh, admitted he was competing “out of duty” and that his chances of winning were nonexistent.

Iran this month outlawed the use of virtual private networks, used to evade online censorship, in a move that drew public criticism. The purchase and sale of such services was already banned.

In addition to restrictions on who can run, Javadi-Hesar said some pro-reform groups had become reluctant to propose candidates because of the political environment.

“Given the parliament’s record and the kind of laws to limit access to the internet or enforce the hijab, the events of recent years and [protest] deaths, many people decided not to vote,” he said. “And the reformists drew from that.”

Reformists have been divided. Some 110 pro-reform figures on February 12 invited political and civil leaders to take part in the polls, despite acknowledging they would be far from free and fair.

But the Reforms Front, an alliance of moderate parties, refused to endorse that statement. The front did not propose a list in Tehran, but supported candidates in some provincial capitals and smaller constituencies, hoping to form an influential minority in parliament.

Many leading pro-reform and moderate figures, such as former telecoms minister Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi, chose not to nominate themselves.

Conservative groups have also been consumed by bitter infighting. They struggled to reach alliances and instead proposed several lists of candidates for the capital.

Javadi-Hesar said there was a “hardline tug of war” under way “to consolidate their grip”. “In the absence of reformists, the differences among an array of hardline factions are coming to the surface,” he added.

News in February that the son of the speaker of parliament, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, had applied for Canadian residency fuelled accusations that the families of senior figures were enjoying luxurious lifestyles unavailable to ordinary Iranians.

Many Iranians are unhappy not only with the election process but with the state of their country, which has faced runaway inflation and widespread economic hardship since former US president Donald Trump in 2018 withdrew his country from a deal on limiting Iran’s nuclear programme and imposed hundreds of crippling sanctions.

Since presidential elections in 2021, the national currency has depreciated sharply against the dollar on the open market. Housing costs have risen, motorists’ fuel quotas have been reduced and prices for internet services increased.

The economic pain, blamed by the ruling conservatives on the former administration, has earned the government criticism from all sides.

Mohammad Mohajeri, a conservative commentator, said with reference to Raisi’s campaign promises that he “had no idea what four million housing units, or a single-digit inflation, or an annual one million new jobs meant”.

These are also the first elections since large-scale protests that followed the death in custody in 2022 of Mahsa Amini, a woman arrested for failing to comply with the country’s strict Islamic dress code. Many Iranian women have since chosen not to cover their hair, prompting seizures of cars and even the closures of businesses that served these women.

The suggestion that even women without head coverings could vote contrasted sharply with that approach. But even with such gestures, it may prove a struggle to win over voters.

“Voting has no value when we have no voice. It has no effect on our lives,” said Massoud, a 26-year-old university student.  

He added: “Voting will give a sense of security to those who won’t even listen to us once the elections are over. By not voting, at least I can signal that I am not supporting them.”