In a speech that signals the anxiety of the hard-liners, Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel, head of the main Principlist ticket for the parliamentary elections, said, “During the previous elections, [foreign] satellite TV channels [opposed to the Islamic Republic] used to constantly urge people not to participate in the elections; however, now they are instructing people to cast their votes and have even introduced their preferred candidates”.
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Faezeh Rafsanjani, daughter of Iran’s former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, attends a campaign meeting for the reformists for the upcoming parliamentary elections in Tehran on February 18.
Polls opened in Iran on Friday as voters select not only a new parliament, but also a new Assembly of Experts – the religious organization allowed to chose or dismiss the nation’s supreme leader. The other part is on the USA, where the election in November may ultimately impact Rouhani’s political future, the nuclear deal, and Iran’s positioning in the world more than Friday’s results there.
Ever since the 1953 American-backed coup overthrowing the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq, the perception of American interference in Iran has been prime political fodder for nationalists.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are, in essence, an ideological army originally created to protect the supreme leader from foreign intervention or a military coup.
“Youth unemployment is a particular concern as this is a highly educated society with a lot of young people”, she said.
Iranians go to the polls Friday to select members of the 290-member Islamic Consultative Assembly – the nearest thing Iran has to an actual parliament – and for the 86-member Assembly of Experts, which is nominally tasked with selecting the Supreme Leader. Voters cast ballots at some 53,000 polling stations, writing down the names of their picks on two separate ballots and dyeing their fingers with ink to show they had voted.
“If we accept the premise of the argument that the current supreme leader is a micromanager, my sense is that he might have handpicked his successor and might therefore tell the Assembly of Experts, ‘here are my last wishes, ‘” Boroujerdi said.
Control of parliament will influence the ability of moderate President Hassan Rouhani, constrained so far, to deliver on his promises of greater freedoms and economic reforms – as well as his own chances of re-election next year.
The former nuclear negotiator has a track record as a conciliator: In his 2013 election, he secured the vote of pro-reform Iranians politically muzzled for years but also drew support from some in Khamenei’s circle thanks to his impeccable background in Iran’s clerical establishment.
Nevertheless, prominent reformists and moderates have scrabbled together a joint list of candidates in Tehran – 30 for parliament, and 16 for the Assembly of Experts – and hope this can propel them to an overall majority in both bodies.
If the assembly is called upon to choose a successor, the decision could set the Islamic Republic’s course for years to come. He underwent prostate surgery in 2014, renewing speculation about his health.
Assembly members must be senior clerics and like parliamentary candidates, they must be approved by the Guardian Council. Iran’s system, despite the facade of elections, is anything but democratic. Heading into this parliamentary election, Larijani left the legislature’s dominant conservative group to form an independent faction.
But fundamental challenges – from falling oil prices and persistent inflation to ageing infrastructure and high public debt – will complicate any efforts to revive Iran’s economy.
Rouhani’s crowning achievement has been the negotiation and implementation of an agreement that limits Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the relief of sanctions that have crippled the country’s economy.
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Their return in significant numbers would reduce hard-liners’ ability to block Rouhani’s agenda of economic reforms in parliament. President Rouhani’s reformist government is run by moderates, but other institutions such as parliament are still dominated by conservatives. The Guardian Council disqualified many for being seen as insufficiently loyal to the ruling system. Jannati has chaired the 12-man council since 1988, and has played an active role in disqualifying reformist and liberal contenders in the past. In the end, around 200 reformists have been allowed into the race. The Guardian Council barred thousands of moderates from standing, including Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
