Iranian election - Are Iranians rejecting theocracy?

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Shavano

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  • #1
    In the Presidential election, the 3 choices offered to them by the theocratic establishement garnered just 40% of the vote.

    That's the worst turnout since 1979, IOW the worst in the 46 year history of the Islamic Republic.

    apnews.com

    Iran to hold runoff election with reformist Pezeshkian and hard-liner Jalili after low-turnout vote

    Iran will hold a runoff election to replace the late hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi after an initial vote saw the top candidates not secure an outright win.
    apnews.com apnews.com

    What's more, the biggest vote getter was Masoud Pezeshkian, the least hard-line of the three candidates on offer. Some fraction of that has to be taken as public dissatisfaction with the Islamic Republic, IMO, and it could mean the Islamic Republic is in trouble. Should the voters now turn out in the runoff for Perezhkian, it coult create the possibility that the Supreme Leader would nix the voter's choice after approving him as a candidate.

    I take this as a vote of no-confidence by the Iranian people in the Islamic Republic.

    Context:
    In Iran, the candidates are not chosen by some democratic or organic party process; they're picked by the Guardian Council, who answer to the Supreme Leader, as does the President, when elected. The Supreme Leader is elected by the Assembly of Experts.
    The Assembly of Experts is elected by the people but all the candidates much be approved by the Supreme Leader.

    It's very circular but all roads to power and the exercise thereof begin and end at the Supreme Leader, who is unaccountable.
     
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    Shavano

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  • #4
    fractl said:
    I thought the Iranian President was just a figurehead.
    Click to expand...
    Not exactly. He runs the administrative arm of the government, but he can be overruled by the Supreme Leader. My impression is the Supreme Leader knows nothing about anything except religious orthodoxy and hating America and Israel and couldn't run a government if he tried, but I could be wrong. Maybe he does really puppetmaster the President around.

    Anyway 60% of the voters appear to have expressed their preference for none of the above and of those that voted, 42% expressed a preference for a guy that seems to represent dissatisfaction with the theocratic system. Maybe I'm misinterpreting the low turnout though. This was a snap election because the old President died and maybe a lot of people just hadn't made up their minds. Maybe a lot of Iranians just don't bother because they feel like their vote won't make a difference. There's a lot of Americans like that but fewer than there used to be. But ultimately the vote totals for the candidates the ayatollah really prefers amount to less than a quarter of eligible voters. It's certainly less than a ringing endorsement for the Islamic Republic and the Supreme Leader.

    And that's not the only thing that's gone badly for the SL in the last couple of years. The whole headscarf protest thing means the people do not want to be ruled they way they have been. Discontent is brewing.
     
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    fil

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  • #5
    Shavano said:
    Not exactly. He runs the administrative arm of the government, but he can be overruled by the Supreme Leader. My impression is the Supreme Leader knows nothing about anything except religious orthodoxy and hating America and Israel and couldn't run a government if he tried, but I could be wrong. Maybe he does really puppetmaster the President around...
    Click to expand...
    The experts, for example in the Democracy Index (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index) view Iran as a fully authoritarian state, worse than Russia, China, or even Saudi Arabia (on that list).

    These elections don't mean much, and they're hard to read, because (as for example in Russia) people against the regime tend to protest the election by not participating, rather than voting for one of the regime's hand picked candidates.

    I suppose one could say that the regime, by allowing a somewhat-more-moderate-than-usual candidate to run, is trying to calm the country, and pull back from the abyss of mass protest and regime on citizen violence that they've been going through. Whether this will work as a tactic to mollify the protests, who knows, but the protesters generally know that they live in an authoritarian country and that their elections are a sham, and that nothing much is going to change as long as the "Supreme Leader" is in place. (And of course a large fraction of well educated Iranians fled the country long ago and more are continuing to flee).
     
    ramases

    ramases

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  • #7
    It is very unlikely that the elections themselves will lead to meaningful change in the country.

    Beyond the elections there might actually be a window of opportunity (the decline of Russia, China being none too pleased with Iran over letting their Houthi proxies run away to the point of upsetting the PRC's trade apple cart, combined with younger generations being increasingly aware about the outside world and who are Quite Done With This Shit) for change opening in ... say about 2 years?

    Too bad you lot probably will insist on someone with a foreign policy too stupid and hamfisted to make anything out of it.
     
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    karolus

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  • #9
    The effects of climate change are becoming more prevalent in Southwest Asia, as well as the expanding conflicts between Israel and their opponents, which could draw greater Iranian involvement. Some of these stressors may create economic conditions that will force change, well beyond what the ruling elite can answer for.
     
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