Iran's Election May Be Closer and More Consequential Than You Think

As Iran prepares to hold an early presidential vote on Friday, the election is shaping out to be an especially competitive and unpredictable three-way race with particularly high stakes.

While the four remaining candidates were all vetted by the Guardian Council, which answers to Iran's ultimate authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, they have expressed differing views over the nation's domestic and foreign policy trajectory. The winner may have the potential to sway the government on key issues, albeit within the framework of the Islamic Republic's political system.

This system has increasingly favored principalist candidates in recent years, as evidenced by conservative gains in parliamentary elections held in May and the widely expected landslide victory of President Ebrahim Raisi during the last presidential vote held in 2021. But Raisi's sudden death in a helicopter crash near the border with Azerbaijan has opened the door to competing views, some of which appear to be resounding with a public that has demonstrated record low turnouts in recent votes.

In fact, the lone reformist candidate, Masoud Pezeshkian, appears to be leading major opinion polls as the official campaigning period came to an end. The parliamentary representative for the Tabriz, Osku and Azarshahr districts garnered 37.5 percent, 33.1 percent and 30 percent of support from respondents to surveys published Wednesday by Porsesh PR, the Iranian Students Polling Agency and Shenaakht Center, respectively.

But Pezeshkian's two top rivals, both conservatives yet with differing views and backgrounds, were not too far behind and last-minute moves by all six candidates could seriously impact the course of the election.

Saeed Jalili, a close aide to Khamenei and former nuclear negotiator, came in second with 25 percent from Porsesh PR, 28.8 percent from ISNA and 21 percent from the Shenaakht Center. Parliament speaker and former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Mohammed Bagher Qalibaf came in in third with 20.8 percent at Porsesh PR, 19.1 percent at ISNA and 20 percent at the Shenaakht Center.

The remaining candidates approved to run, Vice President Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi, Tehran, Iran Mayor Alireza Zakani and former Justice Minister Mostafa Pourmohammedi, the only cleric on the ballot who has broken the conservative mold to express reformist ideals as well, failed to obtain double-digit points in all three polls.

Ghazizadeh and Zakani later dropped out but ultimately chose not to endorse other candidates as has been the case in past elections, such as in 2021, when Zakani and Jalili pulled out of the race in favor of Raisi.

If the current figures hold between Pezeshkian, Jalili and Qalibaf, a second round of voting could be held between the top two candidates on July 5.

While Raisi had early on emerged as the favorite as well as a potential successor to Khamenei himself in the previous election, this year's extraordinary vote has yet to produce an obvious choice. Pezeshkian, Jalili and Qalibaf all draw appeal from different yet important audiences who are not necessarily voting across traditional party lines.

"I think what makes this race so competitive is that a significant proportion of the eligible voters have moved away from voting based on their loyalty to the political party they feel more aligned to," Setareh Sadeq, an Iranian political analyst and host of the Twice-Told Tales podcast, told Newsweek.

She also took note of the rushed and unplanned nature of the election, just 40 days, that has substantially limited the time in which candidates could engage in advertising, debates and other attempts to appeal to the public.

"The choices for the candidate to vote for have been shifting dramatically over like a couple of days after each debate," Sadeqi added. "So, we have had five debates in a short span of time, and after each, there has been considerable changes in the polls, and then the popularity of each candidate."

Pezeshkian, who had been disqualified by the Guardian Council from running in 2021, has the potential to galvanize support among fellow members of Iran's Azeri ethnic minority, who are estimated to make up between 16-24 percent of the nation's population, as well as among many Iranians who seek a shift away from increasingly conservative policies. His presence on the ballot is the first for a reformist since 2017 when then-Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was reelected, and many have opted to boycott subsequent elections.

Sadeqi pointed out that the unpredictability of the race has "encouraged more people who chose a passive stance or didn't want to vote to actually want to participate because you're seeing how in the polls the percentage of popularity for each candidate." As such, she said, Iranian voters "feel they can have a role in the decision-making."

But as Iranians are expected to take to the polls in larger numbers, the only explicitly pro-reform candidate's campaign has also proven the most controversial.

A rally held Monday in Tehran, Iran involved imagery associated with the opposition Green Movement, whose leader has been detained since 2011. Pezeshkian has also enlisted the support of former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif who helped oversee a historic 2015 nuclear deal with the U.S. and other world powers under the Rouhani administration.

The deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) began to unravel three years later, however, as then-U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned the accord and reinstituted sanctions against Tehran, Iran. His successor, President Joe Biden, sought a return to the agreement but negotiations faltered in late 2022 and Iran has continued to lift restrictions on its nuclear activity, citing the lack of fulfillment of commitments from Western parties.

Zarif delivered a fiery speech last week at a roundtable in support of Pezeshkian blaming Iranian hard-liners for undermining attempts to restore the JCPOA. Both Jalili and Qalibaf hit back at the remarks, arguing that it was the U.S. that had failed to engage seriously.

Khamenei appeared to weigh in on the matter Saturday, warning that candidates "should not speak in a way that pleases the enemy."

However, crucial divisions have emerged between Jalili and Qalibaf as well, shining a light on conservative rifts that could prove even more crucial to Iran's political future.

Jalili is an outspoken critic of the JCPOA and is viewed as a key ally to Khamenei and some of the most conservative elements seeking to consolidate control in Iran. He has sought to leverage his positions in advisory institutions such as the Supreme National Security Council, Expediency Discernment Council and Foreign Relations Strategic Council to win legitimacy among the nation's highest authorities.

Qalibaf, on the other hand, is widely seen as a more pragmatic figure who has expressed a greater openness to the JCPOA and pursuing talks with the West in general. His ties to the powerful IRGC, which has assumed an increasingly influential role in Iranian society, could also prove critical to his support base at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions across the Middle East.

On Wednesday, IRGC Brigadier General Ramezan Sharif emphasized the elite military institution's policy of not favoring any candidate over another and, echoing repeated appeals by Khamenei, urged voters to come out Friday in sizable numbers to assert the legitimacy of an election that has been called into question by the U.S. and its allies.

"Divisions among principlists has in past Iranian presidential elections been a factor that prevented them from winning in the first round of voting (leading to a second round), or even contributed to their defeat," Farzan Sabet, senior research associate at the Global Governance Center, told Newsweek.

"Their prospects are worsened with the presence of a reformist candidate, backed by a unified coalition that includes so-called 'moderates' like Rouhani and Zarif and reformists like [former Iranian President Mohammed] Khatami," he added.

Which two candidates ultimately emerge in a face-to-face second round may ultimately prove emerge as a central factor in determining the extent of reformist resolve and principalist unity.

"If the election goes to a second round between a principlist and reformist," Sabet said, "intra-principlist divisions will make less of a difference, and voter turnout will be more important, with a higher turnout favoring reformists, and a lower one favoring principlists."

"But these divisions will come out more into the open if the second round is between two principlists like Ghalibaf and Jalili," he added, "whose differences have lurked just beneath the surface."