Iran’s Presidential Elections: A Strategic Paradox

The Islamic Republic of Iran will hold its next presidential elections on June 18. Most observers, though, consider it actually took place several weeks early, on May 25.

On that day, the Guardian Council - the body responsible for deciding which candidates are authorized to run in Iran’s presidential elections - announced its selection. There is no known representative of the moderate camp on the list of candidates selected by the Guardian Council. As such, the main conservative candidate, Ebrahim Raisi, currently chief justice, appears to be running without a serious rival.

A regime in motion

Notable among the eliminated candidates was Eshaq Jahangiri, vice-president of the current Rouhani administration. He already ran in 2017 and demonstrated serious debating skills on that occasion. He then withdrew in favor of current president Hassan Rouhani before the election took place. The only reformist candidate in the upcoming elections will therefore be Abdolnaser Hemmati, former governor of the Central Bank, a technocrat without political experience. It is worth adding that he has not enjoyed strong support by the reformist camp during the campaign.

Mohammad Javad Zarif, the foreign affairs minister who is popular in certain circles, was eliminated by other means, before May 25: deliberate leaks of a recording on which he makes remarks against the Revolutionary Guard cut short any hope of a candidacy on his part.

One of the Guardian Council’s choices has come as a surprise: the exclusion of Ali Larijani, a conservative politician, former president of the Majlis (the Iranian Parliament) and close advisor to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei. It is hard to imagine that Larijani would have presented his candidacy without first getting a green light from the Supreme Leader or at least from the latter’s cabinet. The refusal of the Guardian Council to let Larijani run implies either that Khamenei does not necessarily have the last word in the internal quarrels of the conservative camp, or else that he or his entourage have changed their minds.

Of course, many interpretations have been making the rounds in Iranian political circles as to why the Guardian Council disqualified a man seen as a pillar of the Islamic Republic. Some argue, for instance, that his accession to the presidency would have given an advantage to his brother Sadeq, himself a member of the Guardian Council, who for his part has ambitions to replace the Supreme Leader some day. Sadeq Larijani has formally protested the Council’s decision regarding his brother.

Another explanation put forward is that Ali Larijani has gradually moved toward less conservative beliefs. In any case, while Khamenei has publicly expressed his wish that the people whose exclusion by the Council of Guardians was based on false information be compensated, he has not questioned the Council’s decisions, as some had hoped he would.

Putting aside the rumors, there are several takeaways from these recent events. First, it is clear that the conservatives did not want to take any risks in order to ensure the victory of their champion, Raisi, who had already run but was defeated in 2017. It is likely that the prospect of a possible succession of the Supreme Leader - who will be 82 years old in a few weeks - was an important factor. For some time now, Ebrahim Raisi has emerged as the conservatives’ favored candidate for the succession of Ayatollah Khamenei.