【Article/Observer Network Columnist Zhang Chuchu】
On May 25, Iran's Ministry of Interior announced that a total of seven candidates had been qualified. Iran's new presidential election is approaching step by step, touching the nerves of the world. Especially at the critical moment when the "Iranian nuclear talks" in Vienna are entering the final sprint, all parties are worried that the upcoming Iranian elections will add more variables to the already difficult nuclear negotiations.
An election without suspense?
If one phrase were used to sum up the list of candidates currently published in Tehran, "Lacey and his jury" might not be an exaggeration.
According to political factions, among the seven, Iran's judicial director Ibrahim Lahi, along with Saeed Al-Khalili, Muhsin Rezay, Amir Hussein Gajizadh Al-Hashemi and Ali reza Zakani, are in the same camp of hard-line conservatives, with Lacey as the supreme leader's close confidant and popular anti-corruption fighter, which has an overwhelming advantage.
Iran's general election "list of 7 people". Image source: Beijing News Network
Of the remaining two candidates, former Vice President Muhsin Mehlarizade, who is from the liberal reformist camp, is not a favourite in the camp and was last with 4.4 percent of the 2005 presidential primary. Iran's central bank governor Abdel Nasser Hematy, who has no clear factional identity, is helpless and suffered a blow shortly after the election campaign began. On May 30, the Iranian government dismissed Hematy from his post as central bank governor on the pretext of "participating in the campaign to influence his job."
With the list of "admission" candidates for the Iranian elections yet to be finalized, the possibility of new entrants joining the list remains in the coming days. If the current version of the list of candidates is a foregone conclusion, it means that the election is destined to be in suspense. At present, compared with the election results themselves, the process of this election seems to be more interesting.
Who's in who's way?
Since the outbreak of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran has developed a unique system of mixing theocracy and republican politics. Although Iran also has a structure and appearance of a separation of powers between the president, the parliament and the Supreme Court, and the president and parliament are elected by the people, on top of all three, Iran has established a lifelong religious leader as the supreme leader, who is the country's highest jurist.
At the same time, in addition to the three major government organizations of the executive, judicial and legislative, there is a set of parallel and dominated by the catechism group, including the Constitutional Supervision Committee, the National Interest Commission, and the Judicial Director, which are responsible for supervising and restraining the President, the Parliament and the Supreme Court. Half of them are members of the Constitutional Oversight Committee appointed by the Supreme Leader, which wields key powers such as reviewing candidates for election, interpreting the Constitution, and rejecting Islamic Parliament bills.
In Iran, there are three main forces that can influence the political situation, which can be divided into liberal reformists, moderate conservatives, and hard-line conservatives according to their position on the United States, their attitude toward the political and economic line of the Khomeini era, and their closeness to the catechism of jurists.
Among them, liberal reformers advocated a revision of the Khomeini line, hoping to reduce the influence of religion on public life, and tried to promote liberalization reforms, adopted pragmatic policies externally, advocated diluting the elements of Islamism, and tried to promote reconciliation with Western countries.
Conservatives generally advocate adhering to the Khomeini line and the rule of the jurists at home, opposing Western hegemony externally, and their foreign policy is deeply influenced by Islamism. Depending on the degree of toughness of attitude and the political approach taken, conservatives can be further subdivided into moderate conservatives and hardline conservatives. Some moderate conservative politicians advocate finding a middle ground between liberal reformers and hardline conservatives.
For more than three decades, various political factions have competed fiercely in Iran's campaign arena, such as the 2005 multi-power struggle, which was known for its fierce fighting. Therefore, even if Iran implements a secular system, because the country's parliament has long been more competitive with the presidential election, many scholars have even listed Iran as a "relatively democratized country in the Middle East."
Intriguingly, the Constitutional Oversight Commission's arbitrary use of power in this year's presidential campaign has largely resulted in only 7 applicants for the initial 592 candidates.
More importantly, the committee took great pains in its qualification review, and through the method of "tailor-made" screening criteria for specific candidates, the most powerful rivals who competed against Lacey would be eclipsed before the competition began. The Committee stated that only applicants between the ages of 40 and 75 who had no criminal record were eligible to stand for election. The rules have left Tazad, a 39-year-old Iranian minister of communications and information technology, Tazad, a popular candidate for liberal reformers who has been jailed, "automatically out."
Also forced to leave the scene were first vice president Jahangiri, a representative of the liberal reform faction, and Larry Jani, a representative of moderate conservatives, a former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officer and former speaker of parliament. After some manipulation, no moderate conservatives were included in the candidate list, and only one "second-tier player" of the liberal reform faction qualified for the competition, while the hard-line conservative camp had 5 people on the list this time, accounting for 70% of the candidates.
From this point of view, the Constitutional Supervision Committee has a great posture of "supporting the hard-line conservatives to come to power." No wonder Rouhani made a strong appeal to Supreme Leader Khamenei that it was necessary to reinstate some of the candidates or else the election would lose its legitimacy.
How much does the election affect?
In fact, eliminating popular opponents before the election to influence the election is a common routine in many countries in the Middle East. It is worth noting that why is the Iranian Constitutional Supervision Commission particularly willful compared with the past? How important is it to spend June 18 on whose home? What impact will the outcome of this election have on Iran's domestic and foreign affairs?
In recent years, the United States has continued to "limit pressure" on Iran, coupled with the long-term decline in international oil prices, and the recent negative effects of the new crown epidemic have gradually become prominent, the Iranian national economy, which has been hit by multiple blows, has withered and the deepening people's livelihood dilemma has made the integrity and legitimacy of the Iranian regime questioned.
What worries the ruling group of Iranian jurists most is the growing "sacred aura" of the supreme leader and theocracy. For a long time since charismatic leader Khomeini founded the Islamic Republic of Iran, even if Iran's governance performance is not satisfactory, people have mostly pointed the protests at some government officials rather than the supreme leader or theocratic regime. However, the younger generation of Iranians who grew up in the new era lacked ideological resonance with the Islamic Revolution and had limited reverence for religious leaders.
Early last year, after Iran admitted to inadvertently shooting down a Ukrainian airliner, many university students took part in protests and shouted khamenei to resign. In recent weeks, Iranians have also boycotted elections and put up a hashtag on Twitter that reads "Don't want the Islamic Republic."
In this context, the catechism group urgently needs to enhance its legitimacy by improving the economy and people's livelihood. The key to Iran's economy is to reach a nuclear agreement that allows the United States to completely lift sanctions against Iran.
At the end of the day, Khamenei is Iran's top policymaker, and the outcome of the nuclear negotiations is unlikely to change radically as a result of a presidential change. However, at what point in time the Iran nuclear deal is expected to be successful is another mystery. If a significant breakthrough in The Iran nuclear negotiations were made in the final moments of the liberal reformist leader Rouhani's presidency, it might help the liberal reformist camp to expand its voter base.
Khamenei expressed his support for the results of the presidential election qualification review. Image source: Visual China
For hard-line conservatives, if the "seed players" who strive to preserve the original take the presidential crown and slow down the pace of nuclear negotiations to ensure that the negotiations have gone through twists and turns during the new president's administration and are ultimately successful, it will add a lot to the faction and the catechism behind it. This is also an important reason why the current Constitutional Supervision Committee is trying to eliminate its opponents.
In short, the long-term prospects for the Vienna negotiations will not change much, regardless of who is elected. It is worth noting that if Lacey succeeds, it means that in the future, the hard-line conservatives and the catechism behind them will dominate Iranian politics.
Judging from the recent reports of middle Eastern countries on Iran's election, it is not a concern who will spend the future election, but the various waves before the election have worried countries, and the high-profile action of the Constitutional Supervision Committee, despite the doubts of all parties, seems to be intended to prepare for the transition of power and smooth transition for Khamenei, the 82-year-old supreme leader who is suffering from cancer. Therefore, for the middle Eastern powers such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel, what is more suspenseful than the election itself seems to be a "post-Khamenei era" full of uncertainty.
It is worth noting that since the release of the list of Iranian presidential candidates a few days ago, the collective silence of the US political circles has highlighted the weakness of the Biden administration, which is known for its "democratic diplomacy", in Middle East affairs, and also shows that the so-called "human rights" and "democracy" are more like US political tools than policy positions.
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