Iran Presidential Election 2024

[iain]

Jun 27, 2024 16:22:44 GMT mboy said:

Is the establishment behind Jalili or Ghalibaf?

As eastmidlandsright said above, it has been suggested that Jalili is the favoured candidate, but that's unlikely to be decisive in itself.

The decisions on who is allowed to stand for election are obviously rigged to only allow 'acceptable' candidates into the race, but after the vetted candidates are put forward Iran's elections are, on the whole, remarkably free and fair. The regime has shown itself not to be above ballot box stuffing (see: 2009) but this is the exception rather than the norm, and candidates are actually permitted a surprisingly large amount of political space to make their pitches for votes - even if some policy ideas which are promoted would be vetoed by the Supreme Leader if the candidate promoting them actually won.

[eastmidlandsright]

It is important to remember that Khamenei has worked with relatively moderate Presidents for nearly half his time as leader, and that is without including Rafsanjani who wasn't a hardliner either. There are many reasons for this but I think the two main ones are that he likes to be able to play fairly nice with the West when it suits him and he knows that a complete monopolisation of power by more hard line elements would provoke a strong public backlash. Contrary to what many seem to think he is not oblivious to public opinion.

[jimboo2017]

Van full of ballots blown up. 2 police dead

[iain]

Despite allowing a Reformist onto the ballot for the first time in many years, turnout has hit a new low of 40%. To put that in context, turnout was about 73% in 2013 and 2017 when Rouhani won, but fell to a (then) record low of 48% in 2023 when only token opposition was allowed against favoured candidate Ebrahim Raisi.

Counting isn’t over, but we’re currently at:
Pezeshkian: 10.4 million
Jalili: 9.5 millon
Ghalibaf: 3.4 million
Pourmohammadi: 206,397

A runoff between Jalili and Pezeshkian has been announced.

[mboy]

That's a bit disappointing. Can we assume that the Ghalibaf vote will transfer to Jalili? If so, then it looks like a Jalili win for the establishment, unless turnout massively increases for the runoff.

[mboy]

Masih suggests there was a boycot:

I don't really see the point of that. It's a great opportunity to elect a moderate.

[eastmidlandsright]

Jun 29, 2024 18:15:54 GMT mboy said:

Masih suggests there was a boycot:

Yes and No, there was no formal boycott but there is clearly disillusionment among "reformist" voters which was probably the major factor in the poor turnout. Given that things were fairy close that may or may not stay the same for the run off.

[iain]

The rumours are that Pezeshkian has won, with turnout increased to around 50%.

[mboy]

It's confirmed - 53.3 to 44.3% on 50% turnout:

www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx824yl3ln4o

So that's piece of good news. There was still a partial boycott, so higher turnout would likely have meant an even bigger reformist victory. It does suggest there is currently a very large majority in Iran against the Supreme Leader.

I was interested at some of the takes:

[eastmidlandsright]

I am not going to add to anything that I wrote a week ago other than to point out that if Pezeshkian wasn't acceptable to Khamenei he wouldn't have been allowed to stand.

Jun 29, 2024 0:18:03 GMT eastmidlandsright said:

It is important to remember that Khamenei has worked with relatively moderate Presidents for nearly half his time as leader, and that is without including Rafsanjani who wasn't a hardliner either. There are many reasons for this but I think the two main ones are that he likes to be able to play fairly nice with the West when it suits him and he knows that a complete monopolisation of power by more hard line elements would provoke a strong public backlash. Contrary to what many seem to think he is not oblivious to public opinion.

[Forfarshire Conservative]

Sure, but let's not go too far with that. The republican aspects of the regime have been significantly eroded since the turn of the millennium, and it's therefore easy to work with a reformist when they can't do much actual reforming.

[eastmidlandsright]

Jul 6, 2024 11:58:56 GMT Forfarshire Conservative said:

Sure, but let's not go too far with that. The republican aspects of the regime have been significantly eroded since the turn of the millennium, and it's therefore easy to work with a reformist when they can't do much actual reforming.

Yes, this is the point, the President isn't actually that important. Raisi was probably the only President of Khamenei's rule that was genuinely close to him. Aside from him you have had, broadly speaking, two reformists, one old school conservative elite and one populist rabble rouser.