Pwhy the majority supported the member of the “death commissions” ` In Iran, presidential elections were held, marked by a record low turnout. The winner was considered an ultraconservative Ibrahim Raisi. Who is the new president and what to expect from him, RBC understood
Poster featuring Ibrahim Raisi
Ibrahim Raisi has been officially announced as the new president of Iran. The vote took place on Friday, and on Saturday evening the Interior Ministry announced the final results. Although more than 59 Mlnirans had the right to vote, only 48.8% voted-the lowest turnout in history, while at the last election the turnout was 73%. About 4 million ballots in the current election were spoiled by voters, although the supreme spiritual leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, warned that this should not be done (haram).
As a result, a total of 28.9 million people voted, of which 17.9 million (61.9%) voted for Raisi. On Saturday evening, outgoing Iranian President Hassan Rouhani congratulated his successor on his victory.
How the election is going
The President is elected for a four-year term with the possibility of one re-election.
After submitting applications, candidates are considered by the Council of Guardians of the Constitution of Iran (it consists of 12 people-six representatives of the clergy appointed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and six from the parliament on the recommendation of the judiciary). This year, the Council allowed seven candidates to run out of 592 who applied. Among those excluded is the formerIranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, moderate candidates and reformists. Shortly before the day of voting, three people refused to participate-former Vice President Mohsen Mehralizadeh (considered a reformist), MP Alireza Zakani and former Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili. Zakani and Jalili abandoned the race in favor of Raisi.
In addition to Raisi, Secretary of the Expediency Council Mohsen Rezai (conservative), Deputy Speaker of the Parliament Amir Hossein Kazizadeh Hashemi (conservative) and former head of the Central Bank Abdolnaser Hemmati (reformist) took part in the elections.
Predictable outcome
Raisi’s victory was predicted before the election itself: he was supported by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has held de facto power in Iran since 1989. A rigid political system allows you to sweep away “undesirable” candidates. Senior Researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor Vladimir Sazhin recalls that the parishThe reformist Rouhani in 2013 also happened thanks to the supreme leader: “In 2013, Iran needed a person who was supposed to lift international sanctions on Iran, which could only be done by solving the nuclear problem: then came Rouhani, who knew this topic well and had good relations with the West.”
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The camp of the current president of the country, the reformist Hassan Rouhani, was represented by the economist Hemmati, who received about 8.4% of the vote. During the election campaign, Hemmati spoke about the need to fight corruption, improve the tax system and combat the privileges of non-governmental organizations, many of which do not pay taxes. As a supporter of the current president, he was criticized in televised debates. The decline in the popularity of reformists was also shown by last year’s parliamentary elections, following which their representation in the Mejlis decreased.
Strengthening of the conservative trend
The head of the Iranian judiciary, 60-year-old Ibrahim Raisi, has already put forward his candidacy for the post of president for the second time. He ran in the 2017 election, but lost to Rouhani. Four years ago, 16 million voters voted for Raisi, which is a fairly solid group, according to expert Yuliyasveshnikova. “This group consists partly of civil servants, who in any case will support him as a protege of the government, but there are those who support him at the call of their souls,” the expert says.
Raisi has been in Iranian politics for a long time. As the first deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court in the late 1980s, he was one of four judges who sat on the so-called death commissions, and coordinated decisions on which about 5,000 prisoners (mostly political prisoners) were killed (such data is cited by Amnesty International). According to the BBC, he is popularly called the “hangman of 1988”.
In 2009, while holding the same position, he authorized tough measures against participants of the anti-government “green” movement and protests that broke out after the presidential election, Sazhin recalls. After losing the 2017 elections, Raisi continued his career in the judicial sphere, in 2019 he became the chairman of the Supreme Court, that is, in fact, the head of the judiciary. According to Yulia Sveshnikova, this is a significant post in theIranian politics. Then the deputy official representative of the State Department, Robert Palladino, expressed his indignation at the new stage in Raisi’s biography. Raisi, who was involved in the mass executions of political prisoners, was chosen as the head of Iran’s judicial system. What a shame!”raquo;” the Associated Press quotes him as saying. In this capacity, Raisi led an active fight against corruption, thus cracking down on some competitors.
Raisi is known as Syed, a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, which gives him the right to wear a black turban-a significant factor for religious voters. It also gives him the opportunity to accept the post of Iran’s spiritual leader. Raisi and the current spiritual leader of the country share a common homeland-the city of Mashhad. In 2016, Khamenei appointed Raisi to head a large religious foundation”Astan Quds Razavi”. The Foundation manages the Imam Reza Shrine, a popular Shia pilgrimage site in Mashhad, which attracts large funds. As reported by France24, to head this fund means to manage an economic empire. The proximity of Raisi and Khamenei allows experts to suggest that he may succeed Khamenei as supreme leader.
As Sveshnikova notes, there is still no clear understanding of what the new president will take the first steps, since the candidate has not proposed a specific program. “He proposed transparency in the executive branch. But the existing level of corruption and nepotism in the country cannot be eradicated, ” the expert believes. The role of the president in Iran is generally quite weak, experts interviewed by RBC say. “The main role is played by the supreme leader, who together with the team develops the general line, and the president, who occupies the second place in the Iranian establishment (roleprime Minister), although it has a certain scale of freedom, but it is insignificant, ” Sazhin argues. We can expect a strengthening of the conservative trend, Sveshnikova points out. “We see that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has begun to play a much larger role in both the economy and politics,” the expert says. “After Raisi’s victory, all branches of power in Iran will fall into the hands of radical representatives of the Iranian establishment, “Sazhin says,” people who dream of returning to the first years of the Islamic revolution.”
Why such a low turnout
The low turnout, like Raisi’s victory, was expected. “By not voting, the residents have shown that this is their conscious civic choice, that this is the only choice they can make,” Sveshnikova explains. On the eve of the elections, Khamenei called on citizens to vote and became the first to vote in the elections. Polling stations were closed later than planned, but this did not improve the performance.
The reluctance of voters to vote is largely explained by experts in the difficult economic situation. According to the Statistics Center of Iran, in March—April of this year, the inflation rate reached 50%, which was the highest in the last three years. The Iranian authorities have been facing economic problems for several years. “The economic situation is very bad, for three reasons:basically: not quite effective management of the economy, the coronavirus pandemic, which hit the country very hard, and American sanctions, ” Sazhin argues. At the same time, economic problems cannot be solved without the lifting of sanctions, and they can only be lifted by solving the nuclear problem, that is, by returning to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the expert continues.
In April, President Rouhani announced the fourth wave of the pandemic in the country. At the peak, the daily infection rates reached 25 thousand. If by the beginning of June there was a decline (the daily number of infections was below 6 thousand), then by the election date the number of cases per day began to grow again-on June 18, 10,291 cases were detected (data from Johns Hopkins University).
Heading east
The general line in domestic and foreign policy will not change dramatically, and under the new government, Iran’s foreign policy vector will be directed towards China and Russia. According to Sazhin, “relations between Russia and Iran “relations of situational partnership”, they will develop in the same way,while China will be more active in Iran’s economy. In March of this year, Iran and China signed an agreement on political, strategic and economic cooperation for a period of 25 years. “The new government will be more anti-Western, anti-American and anti-Israeli,” Sazhin says.
Expert Sveshnikova agrees that it is possible to strengthen cooperation with Russia and China, the countries of the Muslim world, but the priority will be internal development. The expert notes that during the election campaign, criticism of the nuclear deal (JCPOA) has subsided and now there is no talk about the need to abandon it. Raisi said during the campaign that the country remains committed to the deal: “We are committed to the treaty, the commitments confirmed by the Supreme leader. In the same way, other signatories should be committed to their obligations. <...> The contract must be executed by a strong authority!»