Iran’s Presidential Election: A Family Affair

The first televised debate among the eight Iranian presidential candidates last Friday made it painfully clear that the candidates are vying not for the votes of the people, but for the approval of only one man: Seyed Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader.

Ali Khamenei insisted in a public speech last week that, like all other citizens, he, too, has only one vote, and that he does not know who will be Iran’s next president. Of course, he needn’t worry about the outcome. Of the existing candidates, six are either his family members or his appointees to state organizations, people in his inner circle.

Chief amongst these is Saeed Jalili, the negotiator. According to rumors from Tehran, during a meeting with high-ranking state officials, Ali Khamenei pronounced, “I discovered Saeed Jalili.” Jalili, Iran’s nuclear negotiator and Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, has been caught in Iran’s dead-end nuclear negotiations since his appointment in 2007, exposing Iran to a rash of resolutions and sanctions. The Iranian Leader had similarly favorable opinions about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009, but the past several years have seen a growing distance between the two.

Gholamali Haddad Adel, another candidate, is the father of Mr. Khamenei’s daughter-in-law and a member of his inner circle. Ali Akbar Velayati is the Supreme Leader’s long-time advisor on international affairs. Mr. Khamenei appointed Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf to his position as Police Commander. And Mohammad Gharazi is also considered trusted by the Supreme Leader.

Despite his role as a member of the Experts Council, which oversees the Supreme Leader’s performance, Hassan Rowhani, the only cleric in the election race, is also an appointee of Mr. Khamenei on Iran’s Supreme Security Council. Mohsen Rezaei, the former IRGC commander, lacks a social base and essentially serves as a filler¡ªhe’s been a constant candidate in all presidential races, his perennial presence the butt of endless jokes.

Mohammad Reza Aref, a Vice President during Khatami’s era who is trying hard to appear as a reformist candidate, is a weak stand-in for Iran’s suppressed reformists. After Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was kept from running, severely disappointing his reformist supporters, a huge rift has developed amongst the reformists, whose options now range from picking Aref or Rowhani, to supporting no candidate, to boycotting the elections altogether. Many reformists are calling the elections “the 2013 presidential appointments” and suggesting that reformists take a public stand and state openly that they have no candidates in the race. 

If figures such as Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani state such a position, Mohammad Reza Aref will most likely withdraw from the race. And due to the lack of enthusiasm among reformist supporters, even if the uncharismatic Aref receives the support of major reformist figures, it is highly unlikely he will get ahead of conservatives.

In effect, unlike four years ago when Mr. Khamenei paid a very high price for accepting Mir Hossein Mousavi’s and Mehdi Karroubi’s candidacies and their subsequent challenge to his “engineered election” results, this time the elections have been preemptively engineered through Mr. Khamenei’s hand-picking his candidates to ensure favorable results no matter the vote count.

However, of all Khamenei’s favorites, the most speculation surrounds Saeed Jalili, and whether he can gain the support of all the institutions that can miraculously pave the way for the Leader’s most favorite to the office of the president. 

In Ghalibaf, Jalili faces a major challenge. The mayor of Tehran is a formidable candidate with extensive executive experience, and well-developed public image and the concrete social base that goes along with that. Whereas Jalili relies entirely on groups like the paramilitary Basijis and the Revolutionary Guards as supporters, and potentially also those who will wait to see whom Khamenei hints as his first choice. 

Jalili’s campaign might also suffer from rumors that he is Ahmadinejad’s secret candidate, a rumor that has been widespread amongst conservative websites, in particular those close to Ghalibaf. If the rumor is true, since Ahmadinejad’s government is in charge of holding the election and counting the votes, then Jalili will be in very good hands in the days leading to the election. 

Now, Iranian voters are free to choose their president from one of the Leader’s favorite hand-picked candidates, a kind of unique freedom Iranians enjoy: an election much closer to a family affair than a national referendum.