Iranian Presidential election 19 May 2017

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Ex-President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has been vetoed by the Guardian Council.

Still a large number of potential candidates in the field.

[Lord Twaddleford]

What's that phrase I've seen thrown about here before, "An election type event"? Or something to that effect...

[Deleted]

Apr 21, 2017 12:54:23 GMT Lord Twaddleford said:

What's that phrase I've seen thrown about here before, "An election type event"? Or something to that effect...

"Electoral type event", coined by Sibboleth. 

[Lord Twaddleford]

Apr 21, 2017 12:56:37 GMT @odo said:

Apr 21, 2017 12:54:23 GMT Lord Twaddleford said:

What's that phrase I've seen thrown about here before, "An election type event"? Or something to that effect...

"Electoral type event", coined by Sibboleth . 

That's the one.

Anyway, it should fit Iranian electoral politics quite nicely, I should imagine.

[Deleted]

Six candidates have been approved so far:

Moderate/reformist
- President Hassan Rouhani
- First VP Eshaq Jahangiri
- Mostafa Hashemitaba, former VP

Conservatives
- Ebrahim Raisi, former Attorney General
- Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Mayor of Tehran
- Mostafa Mir-Salim, former Minister of Culture & Islamic Guidance

Jahangiri is a back-up candidate for the moderates in case Rouhani is vetoed by the Guardian Council.

[John Chanin]

Elections in Iran are pretty real. The point is that the people allowed to stand are pre-vetted, and have limited powers. But they do actually run the day to day government administration, and it makes a difference.

[Deleted]

Apr 22, 2017 17:31:38 GMT John Chanin said:

Elections in Iran are pretty real. The point is that the people allowed to stand are pre-vetted, and have limited powers. But they do actually run the day to day government administration, and it makes a difference.

Compare and contrast with most of their neighbours.

[Richard Allen]

The thing that people need to understand here is that Guardian Council, presumably at the behest of Khamenei, paved the way for Rouhani's victory four years ago by allowing the "principalist" vote to be split between four reasonably credible candidates.

While Khamenei is fairly closely associated with the hard liners he is no fool and for both domestic political reasons and foreign relations he recognised the need to have a more moderate President, especially after Ahmadinejad had proven both incompetent and unreliable. Rouhani was perfect for that role, respected in the West, acceptable to the reform movement but also a stalwart of the revolution who has held multiple senior positions in the past and was therefore trusted not to go too far. While Khamenei has, at best, been luke warm in public about Rouhani, and has allowed the hard liners to attack him a fair bit, my guess is that he is fairly happy about how the last 4 years have gone and will not try and prevent a second term.

[Sibboleth]

Iran is like a lot of old school European monarchies before 1914; the elections are real enough (sufficiently so that there's public outrage when poll rigging moves beyond a certain level), but that's not where the power lies.

[John Chanin]

There's only been substantial vote rigging once, on Ahmedinejad's re-election. And that wasn't anything to do with Khamenei or the Guardian Council, but was organised by Ahmedinejad. Since this acted to discredit the regime, he is now persona non grata, and has been vetoed. Iran is a post revolutionary regime, and this does make a difference, as revolutions are inherently popular, and my impression on visiting the country was that while there was some chafing against restrictions, the regime was not particularly unpopular, and the country was much freer on a day to day basis than painted in our media. The public feels that elections are real, and the outrage when it wasn't was real, and noted by Khamenei.

There is politics in Iran, and I agree with Richard Allen above that Khamenei is happy about the way things have gone, and is seeking to maintain balance. What happens when he dies is another matter, as there is no obvious successor.

[curiousliberal]

Apr 22, 2017 18:02:42 GMT Richard Allen said:

The thing that people need to understand here is that Guardian Council, presumably at the behest of Khamenei, paved the way for Rouhani's victory four years ago by allowing the "principalist" vote to be split between four reasonably credible candidates.

While Khamenei is fairly closely associated with the hard liners he is no fool and for both domestic political reasons and foreign relations he recognised the need to have a more moderate President, especially after Ahmadinejad had proven both incompetent and unreliable. Rouhani was perfect for that role, respected in the West, acceptable to the reform movement but also a stalwart of the revolution who has held multiple senior positions in the past and was therefore trusted not to go too far. While Khamenei has, at best, been luke warm in public about Rouhani, and has allowed the hard liners to attack him a fair bit, my guess is that he is fairly happy about how the last 4 years have gone and will not try and prevent a second term.

One of the greatest tragedies of Trump's election is that his policies towards Iran may embolden hardliners there. The US ought to be rewarding moderation from previous stances (to an extent), and appreciating the gradual liberalisation of Iran (which is rare in a world that has, on the whole, become less democratic for every one of the last 11 years).

I hope his idiocy doesn't slow the progress of the reformists too much, although if he follows through on his rhetoric, the Middle East may get a whole lot worse in the years to come. That shouldn't even be possible at this point, but it is.

[Richard Allen]

Turnout is reportedly pretty high which should be good for Rouhani. Opinion polls have suggested that he will comfortably clear the 50% mark but he won't win by quite such a big margin as last time because Ghalibaf withdrew allowing the hard liners to coalesce around around Raisi (Mir-Salim appears to have little support). As planned Jahangiri withdrew and endorsed Rouhani. In a bizarre move Hashemitaba endorsed Rouhani but didn't actually withdraw his candidacy.

[mboy]

Rouhani landslide:

www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/20/iran-hassan-rouhani-set-for-landslide-in-huge-victory-for-reformists

Excellent news.

[middyman]

Apr 22, 2017 19:27:08 GMT John Chanin said:

There's only been substantial vote rigging once, on Ahmedinejad's re-election. And that wasn't anything to do with Khamenei or the Guardian Council, but was organised by Ahmedinejad. Since this acted to discredit the regime, he is now persona non grata, and has been vetoed. Iran is a post revolutionary regime, and this does make a difference, as revolutions are inherently popular, and my impression on visiting the country was that while there was some chafing against restrictions, the regime was not particularly unpopular, and the country was much freer on a day to day basis than painted in our media. The public feels that elections are real, and the outrage when it wasn't was real, and noted by Khamenei.

There is politics in Iran, and I agree with Richard Allen above that Khamenei is happy about the way things have gone, and is seeking to maintain balance. What happens when he dies is another matter, as there is no obvious successor.

That is not my information, which is that on his first election he did well in distant, rural areas which were unaware that an election was taking place.  Second time round people were wise to the situation with the result that the turnout exceeded 100%.

[Richard Allen]

May 20, 2017 8:07:41 GMT middyman said:

Apr 22, 2017 19:27:08 GMT John Chanin said:

There's only been substantial vote rigging once, on Ahmedinejad's re-election. And that wasn't anything to do with Khamenei or the Guardian Council, but was organised by Ahmedinejad. Since this acted to discredit the regime, he is now persona non grata, and has been vetoed. Iran is a post revolutionary regime, and this does make a difference, as revolutions are inherently popular, and my impression on visiting the country was that while there was some chafing against restrictions, the regime was not particularly unpopular, and the country was much freer on a day to day basis than painted in our media. The public feels that elections are real, and the outrage when it wasn't was real, and noted by Khamenei.

There is politics in Iran, and I agree with Richard Allen above that Khamenei is happy about the way things have gone, and is seeking to maintain balance. What happens when he dies is another matter, as there is no obvious successor.

That is not my information, which is that on his first election he did well in distant, rural areas which were unaware that an election was taking place.  Second time round people were wise to the situation with the result that the turnout exceeded 100%.

There was certainly some low level and localised vote rigging in 2005 and it may have been the difference between Ahmadinejad coming second in the first round, thus making the run off, and coming third. It almost certainly didn't effect the result of the run off which he won be a landslide.

There were many major factors in 2005 that favoured Ahmadinejad. Firstly the reformist movement were disillusioned with Khatami having not been able to live up to the expectations that came with his two overwhelming victories. Secondly the reformists were luke warm at best about Rafsanjani who they largely saw as opportunistic and corrupt. Thirdly Ahmadinejad was viewed as something of outsider, standing up against a corrupt elite as embodied by Rafsanjani. Finally the Bush administration's hawkish approach towards Iran and the US presence in both Iraq and Afghanistan was a massive boost to those who took a hard line on matters of foreign relations and security while also damaging those who advocated compromise with the West.

[cogload]

The iron rule of unintended consequences applied then?

Thanks Richard. Interesting thoughts.

[Richard Allen]

May 20, 2017 13:28:29 GMT cogload said:

The iron rule of unintended consequences applied then?

Not as unintended as you might think. The US hawks and Iranian hard liners both benefit from the other being in power.