After mourning President Ebrahim Raïssi, Iran is turning its attention to the June 28 presidential election, for which the conservative camp is seeking a candidate loyal to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
This election will be closely scrutinized on the international scene while Tehran is a major player in the Middle East, against a backdrop of war in Gaza and concerns over the Iranian nuclear program.
Initially scheduled for spring 2025, the election was necessary to replace Ebrahim Raïssi, who died at the age of 63 in a helicopter accident on May 19 in the company of seven other people, including the head of diplomacy Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
In accordance with the Constitution, the Supreme Guide, the highest authority of the Islamic Republic, immediately instructed interim President Mohammad Mokhber, 68, to urgently organize a presidential election.
The process will begin on Thursday, the first of five days during which applicants will have to formalize their application with the Ministry of the Interior. They must be between the ages of 40 and 75 and may or may not be clergy.
The first to jump into the battle is Saïd Jalili, a former nuclear file official considered to be an ultraconservative.
Among the conservative candidates considered are interim President Mokhber, little known to the general public, and even the populist former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who said he was “examining the conditions to decide” whether he would enter the competition.
Former officials presented as more moderate, like the former Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif or the former Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, are also mentioned.
Candidates must be validated by June 11 by the Council of Guardians of the Constitution, an unelected body dominated by conservatives and responsible for overseeing the electoral process.
The issue of participation
In 2021, this body had invalidated many reformist and moderate figures, including Ali Larijani. This allowed Ebrahim Raïssi, the candidate from the conservative and ultraconservative camp, to be easily elected in the first round.
But, put off by this truncated competition, many voters turned away from the polls. Turnout reached only 49%, the lowest rate for a presidential election since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Abstention was even greater in the legislative elections last March since only 41% of voters went to the polls, boycotted by reformist groups after the disqualification of many of their candidates.
“I am sure that the reformists would win with a strong lead” the presidential election if they were allowed to participate, political expert Abbas Abdi said Monday in the reformist daily Hammihan.
Largely dominated by conservatives, the new Parliament took office on Monday and re-elected its president, conservative Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, 62, on Tuesday, which reduces the possibility that he will be a presidential candidate according to experts.
During his funeral which mobilized hundreds of thousands of Iranians last week, Ebrahim Raïssi was praised as a “competent, sincere and serious” leader by the supreme leader.
His three years of presidency were shaken by several crises, including that of the economy, which is weakened by galloping inflation, high unemployment and a record depreciation of the national currency compared to the dollar.
Iran, however, has managed to circumvent severe American sanctions by finding new markets for its oil, particularly in Asia.
Resolutely turning its back on the West, Tehran has moved closer to China and Russia, while tensions have continued to worsen with Israel, especially since the start of the war in Gaza in October.
The two countries were on the brink of war in April, when Iran launched an unprecedented attack on Israeli territory with 350 drones and missiles, most of them intercepted, in response to a strike attributed to Israel that destroyed its consulate in Damascus and killed seven Iranian soldiers.
Domestically, Mr. Raïssi found himself in a delicate situation with the vast protest movement triggered in September 2022 by the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who died following her arrest for non-compliance with the dress code of the Islamic Republic.