With reformist torch-bearer Pezeshkian in the lead, Iran faces severe challenge in run-off presidential vote

LONDON – Iran is heading for a run-off second presidential ballot after no candidate won 50 per cent of the votes in elections held on June 28.

The choice facing Iranians in the second round – now scheduled for July 5 – is momentous.

For, with most of the votes now counted and the lower-ranked presidential candidates eliminated from the run-off, Iran’s electorate will be expected to pick between Dr Massoud Pezeshkian, a 69-year-old mild-mannered and moderate politician who rose to fame by pleading for the rights of women and ethnic minorities, and Mr Saeed Jalili, a 58-year-old hardliner close to the deeply conservative clerical regime running the country.

Given the high stakes involved, there is a real danger in that neither side in this electoral confrontation will readily accept defeat next Friday, so Iran may be heading for another wave of domestic turmoil.

The ballots, held to find a successor to President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash on May 19, follow the Iranian model of “managed elections” in which the votes cast are counted, but only candidates pre-approved by the regime can get on the ballot paper.

And in a further twist, although the presidency is the highest elected position in the country, it is not the highest authority: the final say on almost everything goes to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who is unelected and has ruled Iran for over three decades.

In the 2021 elections that brought the late President Raisi to power, Iran’s Guardian Council – whose members are all appointed clerics and whose job it is to vet every candidate to determine whether they “practically believe in the Islamic Republic and the official religion” – disqualified even the mildest of critics of the Supreme Leader, ensuring Mr Raisi’s election from the start.

This time, however, the Guardian Council allowed six candidates to get on the ballot, including Dr Pezeshkian, a medical doctor by profession who once served as health minister and is associated with reformist politicians who advocate greater freedoms and limits on the powers of the ruling clerical elite.

The Guardian Council never explains its decisions, but there may be two reasons it allowed Dr Pezeshkian’s candidacy.

One reason is that the clerics are worried about ordinary Iranians’ increasing apathy. Less than half of all Iranians bother to vote in elections, so the clerics likely viewed Dr Pezeshkian’s presence on the ballot paper as a potential electoral attraction.

Yet perhaps just as significantly, Dr Pezeshkian initially appeared to have little chance of winning the ballot: he belonged to Iran’s Azeri minority and was relatively unknown to the public.

Now, however, the clerics on the Guardian Council must bitterly regret their choice.

For soon after his name appeared on the ballot paper, Dr Pezeshkian started attracting a large following.

In particular, his comments on a live state television electoral debate in which he openly criticised the 2022 killing of Ms Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old who protested against the mandatory wearing of the hijab veil by all Iranian women, galvanised opponents of the regime to the Pezeshkian candidacy.

Dr Pezeshkian also seems to have attracted solid support from both his fellow ethnic Azeris and the Kurdish people of Iran, who may amount to about a third of the country’s inhabitants.

How much of a true reformer Dr Pezeshkian really is remains a matter of avid debate; regardless of what he may say now, he did serve for more than 16 years in the Iranian Parliament, and he has repeatedly pledged loyalty to the Supreme Leader.

Still, there is no doubt that after the first round of the presidential elections, he is now the leading reformist torch-bearer and, as such, the clerics’ most troublesome opponent.

Dr Pezeshkian received 42.5 per cent of the vote on June 28, compared with 38.7 per cent for the hardliner Saeed Jalili, who is clearly the Supreme Leader’s choice.

The rebuff to Iran’s current religious leadership is even more apparent from the fact that, despite the concession on allowing a reformist to compete, turnout stood at an abysmal 40 per cent, even lower than the 49 per cent turnout in 2021.

And to add insult to injury, the only Islamic cleric on the presidential ballot paper – a certain Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi – received less than one per cent of the vote.

The challenge facing the Supreme Leader and his regime in the next presidential voting round on July 5 is severe.

Certainly, all of Iran’s clerical supporters and hardliners will now redirect their votes to Mr Jalili, a former Iranian diplomat who negotiated the country’s nuclear deals with the West but who remains a firm believer in Iran’s right to develop nuclear capabilities and has often served as the Supreme Leader’s voice on security questions.

However, it is doubtful that Mr Jalili can attract enough votes for victory since the assumption is that many Iranians who did not turn out to vote in the first round of the ballots may well be encouraged to vote on July 5. Most are likely to opt for the reformist Dr Pezeshkian.

Yet, at the same time, it is unlikely that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, now aged 85 and ailing, could contemplate having a reformist president during what may well turn out to be a period of critical political transition in Iran.

But the authorities’ biggest question now is whether either camp will accept the final electoral results in a week.

If the reforming Dr Pezeshkian wins, the clerics are likely to use every possible ruse to limit his powers.

But if Mr Jalili, the authorities’ favourite, is declared the winner, Dr Pezeshkian’s supporters are guaranteed to reject the result as a fabrication, and Iran could erupt in demonstrations similar to those which rocked the nation in 2009 under almost exact circumstances.

Either way, these “managed” elections may well slip out of the grasp of Iran’s clerics.