THE 13th Presidential Elections were held in Iran recently & the palaces of Tehran have a new leader. However, all is not what it seems. Here's how.
Elections in Iran are a tepid affair mingled with public disdain & bureaucratic manipulation. The Presidential Candidates all show how "devout" Muslims they are. Because that's how things work in Iran. Your religious sentiments matter more than your capabilities as a leader. It is a full-fledged "theocracy" after all (where the Priest is considered to be the voice of God and is the Supreme Leader).
Such a polarizing form of government was formed after the fall of the American despot Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1971 when a radical people's revolution backed by a religious cleric swept across the nation. And the reign of the Supreme Leader began.
The current elections had the lowest ever voter turnout of around 50%. Out of 59 million eligible voters, half did not turn out due to a lack of confidence in the legitimacy of the elections. After all certain actions have certainly been questionable.
The Presidential Candidates are all screened by a council of 6 clerics & 6 Supreme Court-appointed members collectively called the Guardian Council.
In the name of religion, this council has barred 3 candidates who were reform centric & had high pre-election approval ratings, as per the reports of independent agencies.
Despite having no formal legal clause on the matter, all women were also barred from standing in the elections.
Only Shia Muslims (who have a 90% majority in Iran) are allowed to contest the elections.
Finally, a hardline cleric named Ebrahim Raisi (shown below) emerged victorious with the highest number of votes (people who did turn up to vote were mostly the loyalists of the Supreme Leader who had endorsed the conservative & deeply religious Raisi.
At a time when the Iranian economy is in the doldrums due to severe American sanctions, a seasoned diplomat or a reformist economist would have been a better choice for Iran instead of a former judge accused of war crimes. Nonetheless, it is Ali Khomeini whose word is final in the streets of Tehran. And final it shall be, irrespective of its lack of foresight.
Rising inflation, loss of oil exports, entanglement with Chinese debt, disillusionment with government policies & nuclear armament are all catastrophic missteps of the current regime. Iran is slowly losing against the collective might of Israeli & Saudi Arabian forces on both the flanks. The only ray of hope is that both the EU & current American President Joe Biden are ready to renegotiate the JCPOA (treaty regarding nuclear armament & American sanctions). It's all in the balance as of now in the middle east. If public perception turns against the west, Iran might go nuclear with the help of Pakistan and China. And that might spark a horrific nuclear arms race in the Middle East (akin to pre-world war Europe). And we all know how that turned out.
It is time for leaders to some real foresight & pass the mantle of peace. Otherwise, things might just turn ugly, rapidly spiraling out of control.
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