The specter of a boycott looms over the legislative elections in Iran, at a time when the authorities have called on more than 61 million Iranians to go to the polls on Friday to elect a new parliament and the Leadership Council of Experts, in a vote that is expected to strengthen the conservatives’ grip on power in the absence of a real competitor.
Iranian Leader Ali Khamenei will be the first to cast his vote at 8:00 a.m. (Tehran time) in one of the 59,000 polling stations distributed in Iran, especially in schools and mosques, according to Agence France-Presse.
According to the Interior Ministry’s announcement, about 61 million Iranians out of 85 million have the right to vote, about half of whom are women in schools and mosques.
Experts expect a very high boycott rate of more than 50 percent. These are the first elections after massive protests that shook the country, a year and a half ago, following the death of the young woman Mahsa Amini while she was being held by the morality police on the grounds of wearing a bad hijab.
It comes amid public dissatisfaction due to the worsening living crisis, with the continuation of US sanctions as a result of the withdrawal of the previous administration headed by Donald Trump from the nuclear agreement. The diplomatic path seeking to revive the nuclear agreement was disrupted, months after the government of Ibrahim Raisi took office, with the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
Hours before the end of the election campaign, Khamenei returned to repeating the “bottom line” in his speeches over the past year, which is to raise the participation rate in the elections. He urged Iranians to vote massively, saying: “Everyone must participate in the elections,” stressing: “Strong and enthusiastic elections are one of the pillars of sound management of the country.”
Khamenei was delivering his last speech before the elections today, in front of three thousand young men and women, who were gathered in Tehran from various parts of the country, on trips organized by the Basij forces of the Revolutionary Guard. State television described these people as first-time participants in the elections.
Khamenei insisted on the importance of sending a message abroad through local elections, saying: “If we can show the world that the people are present in the important and fateful events of the country, then we have saved the country and pushed it forward.”
The author of the final speech added, in the same context: “International political observers are more afraid of the presence of the people; Because they saw his strength… There are countries in the world that closely monitor Iran’s issues… The Americans, the dominant policies in Europe, the policies of the Zionists, the policies of the capitalists, and the major companies in the world… These policies are directed towards Iran,” Iranian government media reported. .
In turn, Agence France-Presse quoted Khamenei as saying: “Iran’s enemies are closely monitoring the presence of the Iranian people… in the electoral arena.”
The elections are being held amid tension prevailing in the region as a result of the war between Israel and Hamas, which has been ongoing since October 7 in the Gaza Strip.
Khamenei implied boycott campaigns. “There is no point in not voting,” he said. He added: “Some inside the country do not care about the elections, but everyone must be reminded that we must look at the elections from the perspective of national interests, not partisan or factional interests.”
Khamenei said: “If the elections are weak, everyone will be harmed,” repeating what he said before the 2020 elections: “Whoever loves Iran, its people, and its security must know that if the elections are weak, no one will win and everyone will be harmed.”
He added: “My words are not directed at those who cannot participate in the elections for any reason, but rather those who express their unwillingness and encourage others not to attend should think more.” He continued: “Not voting will not bring any result or fruit, and will not solve a problem in the country.” ».
He continued: “If the elections are strong, the elected will also be strong. If our presence in the elections is strong, then the strong parliament will do great things and take great steps.”
In his recent speeches, Khamenei focused on the elections and called on “influential figures” to “encourage” citizens to vote.
“Icy atmosphere”
The 2020 legislative elections witnessed the lowest turnout since the declaration of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Only 42.57 percent of voters cast their votes during the poll, which took place 24 hours after the announcement of the first two cases of infection with the “Covid-19” virus.
These elections witnessed boycott campaigns following the protests of 2017 and 2019, as well as the downing of the Ukrainian plane with two missiles from the Revolutionary Guards’ defenses in southern Tehran, which killed 176 people, the majority of them Iranians, a few weeks before the elections.
On Tuesday, the reformist newspaper “Hum Mihin” headlined, “The political atmosphere remains icy,” likening the political climate to the wave of cold and snow that swept a number of Iranian regions in recent days.
For its part, Vatan Emroz newspaper, which is close to the Revolutionary Guards, praised “the people’s interest in the campaign,” especially in the countryside.
In Tehran, where participation was just over 25 percent of voters in 2020, the number of candidate signs is lower than in previous election campaigns.
The capital was one of the centers of the widespread protest movement that shook the country after the death of the girl Mahsa Amini in September 2022, days after her arrest by the morality police. For not adhering to the strict dress code of the Islamic Republic.
“living crisis”
The elections are also taking place amid growing dissatisfaction in Iran regarding the high cost of living, an inflation rate of nearly 50 percent, and the inability of the administration.
Mohsen Amidbakhsh, a forty-year-old employee, said in response to questions from an Agence France-Presse correspondent near Tehran’s Grand Bazaar: “People’s pockets are empty,” adding: “I do not think that the next parliament will be able to change this situation.”
Iranians elect the 290 members of parliament for four-year terms in a single-round ballot.
They also choose the members of the Leadership Council of Experts, a body composed of 88 members of influential clerics elected for a term of 8 years by direct public suffrage, which is supposed to name the successor to the current guide in the event that he is unable to carry out his duties. The constitution also mandates it to supervise the performance of the guide and the possibility of his dismissal, which are powers that many believe are invalid.
The Guardian Council approved a record number of 15,200 candidates for the legislative elections, rejecting the nominations of more than 30,000 others.
The Council rejected the request of moderate former President Hassan Rouhani (2013-2021) to run in the elections for the Leadership Council of Experts, even though he has been a member of it for 24 years.
The leader of the reformist movement, former President Mohammad Khatami (1977 – 2005), regretted that Iran is “very far from free and competitive elections.”
However, the two former presidents did not call for a boycott of the elections, contrary to calls at home and abroad who see any participation as a bargain with the authorities that refuses to carry out radical reforms.
The Reform Front, the main coalition of reformist parties, announced that it would be absent from “these elections devoid of any meaning and useless in running the country,” at a time when candidates in a number of governorate constituencies attributed themselves to the reformists.
It is expected that these elections will confirm the decline of the reformist and moderate camp after it was marginalized by the conservatives and extremists who have held all powers since the election of Ibrahim Raisi as president in 2021.
The election results will reveal the size of each of the different movements in the conservative camp, whether in Parliament or in the Leadership Council of Experts, at a time when the possibility of succeeding the leader, who will turn 85 in April, is raised.
More than 275 Iranian activists, including former parliamentary officials, called this week to boycott the elections, describing them as a “theater,” accusing the authorities of “engineering the elections” and presenting a “deceptive spectacle” of the electoral process.
Last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, activist Narges Mohammadi, called for a boycott of the “show” elections, and said in a statement from her cell in Evin Prison that the boycott “is a duty not only from a political standpoint, but also from a moral standpoint.”
