In Iran the process of registering candidates for the early presidential elections on 28 June has come to an end.
The tragic death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a plane crash on 19 May triggered early elections of the head of Iran’s executive power.
In Iran the president, who is elected by direct popular vote, is neither the most high-ranking official, nor is he the head of state. The highest authority in the Islamic Republic belongs to the Supreme Leader (rahbar-e). He appoints the president, who is elected by the people, by decree, but he can also remove him from power. The president controls the executive branch within his given jurisdiction, guided by the decrees and wishes of the rahbar-e. He also appoints ministers approved by the parliament (Majlis) and the Supreme Leader, who can also dismiss and reinstate any minister regardless of the decision of the president or the Majlis.
The list of candidates for participation in the presidential elections in Iran is approved by the constitutional Guardian Council, which consists of 12 members (6 ayatollahs, i.e. clerics chosen by the rahbar-e, and 6 legal experts chosen by the parliament from among the persons proposed by the head of the judiciary of Iran).
The current political system (including the mechanism for selecting and approving presidential candidates) once again shows that the rahbar-e has a key influence on the elections themselves and the subsequent course. Given the conservative views of the current Supreme Leader, Seyyed Ali Khamenei, it may be assumed that no significant changes in Iran’s domestic and foreign policies should be expected in the foreseeable future.
A number of well-known and little-known individuals alike have applied for registration for the early presidential elections of 2024. In particular, former Speaker of the Majlis Ali Larijani, former Head of the Central Bank Abdul Nasser Hemmati, representative of the rahbar-e in the Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili, former Deputy Head of the Administration of the Rahbar-e and ex-commander of the IRGC General Seyyed Vahid Haghanian, Speaker of the Assembly of the Islamic Council Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Minister of Culture and Islamic Orientation Mohammad Esmaili, Mayor of Tehran Alireza Zakani, Shi’a theologian Mohammad Mirtaj ol-Dini, Rector of Tehran University Mohammad Moghimi, Zohra Elahiyan, the first female presidential candidate and former MP and famous doctor, and others.
First of all this list of candidates shows the high level of political activity in Iranian society and the broad representation of different sections of the political forces of modern Iran. The remarkable thing about the upcoming presidential elections is that a female candidate is running for the first time in the history of Iran. In other words, the formal side of democracy is represented in Iran.
How do registered candidates differ?
Among the registered candidates are representatives of the so-called reformist group, supporters of former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (for example former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif). However, the time of Rouhani’s rule differed from the current reality of turbulent processes at the global and regional levels. Until 2016, Iran could search for new opportunities to reform and achieve a lifting of the notorious sanctions, finding compromises with Western countries on the nuclear programme, and, over time, certain internal political transformations in the Islamic Republic itself could not be excluded. Today, there is a sharp aggravation of contradictions between the leading centres of power (USA/Europe and Russia/China), the Middle East is once again consumed with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Syria and the South Caucasus are uneasy too. Against the background of rapidly changing events in the region, the unexpected death of the eighth president of Iran, E. Raisi, adds to the desire of the conservative part of the Iranian political elite to strengthen their positions, including a stricter approach to the nuclear programme from Tehran. Among the most prominent representatives of this group of presidential candidates are Ali Larijani, Saeed Jalali, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Vahid Haganiyan, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. Each of them has vast political experience and some (especially A. Larijani, S. Jalali and M. Ghalibaf) have previously participated in presidential elections – Ahmadinejad was the sixth president of the country (2005-2013).
The political experience and views of Ali Larijani indicate that enjoys the special trust and support of rahbar-e Ali Khamenei. It should be noted that Ali Larijani’s father, Ayatollah Hashemi Mirza Amoli, was a well-known cleric in Iran, who was exiled by the Iranian Shah Reza Pahlavi in 1958 to Najaf, a Shi’a city in Iraq, for his views. Subsequently, he made a significant contribution to the February 1979 Islamic Revolution and was an associate of Ayatollah Rouhani Khomeini. Ali Larijani’s relatives are also prominent Iranian politicians.
Ali Larijani received a quality education at Tehran Sharif University of Technology, specialising in mathematics and computer science, and holds a PhD in philosophy. In the 1980s, he headed the IRGC, was Minister of Culture and Islamic Orientation, head of the national broadcasting company ‘Voice of Islamic Republic of Iran’, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, MP and Speaker of Parliament three times. He is characterised as being an unyielding and pragmatic politician, as well as an experienced negotiator (including on the nuclear file). After resigning from the post of Speaker of the Majlis in 2014, Larijani created the Rahrovan-e Vilayet party (‘Followers of rahbar-e’ in Farsi), signalling his great political ambitions.
If he wins, Larijani plans to “solve the problem of American sanctions” and may make changes in the regional balance of power around Iran. It is noteworthy that this politician has the opposite approach from former President Raisi regarding the problems of relations with NATO, Israel and the partners of the ‘Zionist regime’. This means that it will be unprofitable for the US to ignite a new war (for example in the Lower Caucasus with the participation of Iran), since, in this case, all their plans to advance to the East may be disrupted.
Modernisation of the Iranian port Chabahar and the new India–Iran–Russia axis
The early presidential elections in Iran coincide with the determination of routes of strategic corridors and transit of goods from rapidly developing Asian countries to Europe.
As is known, on 13 May this year, Iran and India signed a 10-year agreement on the reconstruction and operation of the strategically important Iranian port Chabahar, located in the South-East of Sistan-Balochistan province and on the shores of the Gulf of Oman. Despite warnings of sanctions from the US State Department against India, New Delhi is unlikely to abandon the use of the Chabahar, which is an important part of the North-South multimodal transit project.
According to Azeri expert Farhad Mamedov, the Chabahar port presents to India a strategic chance to diversify trade routes and reduce dependence on unstable transit corridors controlled by countries unfriendly to it (e.g. Pakistan), and, conversely, to discover new trade opportunities with Central Asian countries, Russia and Iran. The latter will be an incentive to increase the level of economic stability and geopolitical influence of India.
Chabahar is a deep-water port located on the high seas, which can provide safe and close access for large cargo ships; it will become a ‘transit gateway’ for Indian goods to Afghanistan and the landlocked countries of Central Asia. In turn, the Singapore Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) believes that the port of Chabahar, connecting India and Iran by transit, can become an alternative to the Chinese Silk Road project because of its advantageous geographical location near the Strait of Hormuz and the Indian Ocean, which provides a ‘vantage point’ to the Indian Ocean, Africa and Western Asia. This may be supplemented by the northern vector of transit development from India through Iran and the Caspian Sea to Russia (the port of Enzeli in the South of the Caspian Sea is already connected by rail to the port of Bandar Abbas in the Persian Gulf), as well as the Western vector through Iran, Armenia and Georgia to Europe.
Back in 2003, Iran and India signed a similar declaration, but the project was not realised due to rocky relations between Delhi and Washington (that is, Prime Minister Vajpayee and President George W. Bush). Meanwhile, over the past years, India has successfully carried out infrastructure work on its territory, in Afghanistan and Iran to bring closer the launch of a transit project bypassing the Pakistani ports of Karachi and Gwadar. New Delhi intends to implement the Chabahar project, since the US is particularly interested in blocking Chinese transit along the Silk Road route and relies on the India to counter China. It is no coincidence that the Economic Times of India notes that the Indian-Iranian agreement on Chabahar contributes to strengthening regional stability, and the US will therefore not interfere with its implementation.
Thus, the new Iranian authorities will support the Indian transit project in the Middle East and Lower Caucasus to integrate into the Russian North-South route, with possible access to Europe. One thing becomes clear: Iran is interested in reducing Western sanctions and breaking through isolation. At the same time, multimodal transit projects carry positive prospects in terms of economic cooperation, but likewise have negative forecasts (for example, from the United States) in terms of their impact on regional geopolitics. But that’s why presidential elections are held to choose one of the alternatives. It should also be remembered that Iran will not want to aggravate relations with China and participate in blocking the Chinese BRI, from which Tehran received huge investments of almost $490 billion for 25 years in March 2021.
According to Iranian general Ali Shamkhani, the upcoming presidential elections, which will take place against the background of ongoing efforts to create internal corridors as a strategic source of national development via the transit of goods, will send a signal to the main players in the ‘war of global corridors’.
In turn, on 3 June, Azerbaijan expressed serious concerned about the attack by pro-Palestinian forces on the Istanbul office of the republic’s leading oil company (SOCAR Türkiye), which has accused Baku of continuing oil supplies to Israel. It is surprising that this demarche took place in Turkey – a brotherly country for Azerbaijan – whose President R. Erdoğan has become an ardent opponent of Israeli Prime Minister B. Netanyahu.
Meanwhile, Baku, having come up with no serious justification, has declared that it has no information regarding where Azeri oil is sold by international traders, although the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline still exports oil to Israel. At the same time, Azeri experts (for example from minval.az) blame pro-Iranian forces for the incident in Istanbul, which, in their opinion, so calmly attacked an important Azeri facility in the presence of the Turkish police. It is clear that the alliance with Turkey does not mean that Azerbaijan renounces its independent policy and interests; it indicates possible transformations in Iranian-Azeri relations, which were restored not so long ago thanks to E. Raisi and I. Aliyev.
Tehran advocates for increasing the front of resistance to the Israeli government through broad Islamic integration, as well as expanding the trade embargo on Tel Aviv by members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Thus, the stakes in the election of Iran’s ninth president are rising.
Alexander SVARANTS – Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”