Will mounting discontent affect Iran election?

Voters are heading to the polls in Iran for the first time since anti-government protests shook the country in 2022.

Friday's election is seen as a "crucial test of legitimacy and national support for Iran's leadership", said the BBC, "but a low turnout is expected". Voter apathy is widespread as the nation faces crises including a significant economic downturn and multiple foreign policy tensions. Tehran is also dealing with the continuing fallout of mass protests sparked by the 2022 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, from injuries sustained while in police custody for wearing an "improper" hijab.

Voters who do head to the polls will ostensibly be participating in two elections: to choose members of the parliament and also the Assembly of Experts. Assembly representatives serve an eight-year term and oversee and elect Iran's most powerful figure, the Supreme Leader – currently 84-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Voting is under way in Iran as the nation heads to the polls for the first time since anti-government protests shook the country in 2022.

Friday's election is seen as a "crucial test of legitimacy and national support for Iran's leadership – but a low turnout is expected", said the BBC. 

Voter apathy in the country is high as the nation battles with crises on multiple fronts. Iran is experiencing a significant economic downturn, various foreign policy tensions, and the continuing fallout of mass protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in 2022. She died in custody after being detained by the country's morality police for wearing an "improper" hijab. 

When voters – however few there may be – head to the polls, they will ostensibly be participating in two elections: one to choose members of the parliament, and another to elect members of the Assembly of Experts. 

Assembly representatives serve an eight-year term and oversee and elect Iran's most powerful figure, the Supreme Leader – currently 84-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

What did the commentators say?

The election will "offer a glimpse into public opinion at a critical time for the country", said The Washington Post. Many Iranians are "still reeling" from the violent government crackdown on the nationwide protests that began last year after Amini's death. More than 500 people have been killed and thousands jailed.

Since then, suppression of free speech and dissent has only "intensified". Rates of executions have increased, conservative laws tightened and "repressive tactics are on the rise", according to rights groups and activists. Khamenei, in power for three decades, has urged citizens to cast their votes, asserting that refusing to vote "would not solve anything". 

But with critics of the regime calling for a boycott of the election, the state-linked polling agency projects a meagre 41% turnout, the lowest in the last 12 elections.

Unsurprisingly there are no true democratic elections in Iran, said Iranian political researchers Kasra Aarabi and Saeid Golkar, writing for Euronews. But even for the standards of the Islamic Republic, "election engineering has been unprecedented this time around". 

Only those on the Islamist right – "the social base of Khamenei and his all-powerful paramilitary force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)" – have been permitted to run for office, while those on the left, sometimes referred to as "reformist", have been disqualified from the elections. 

Today's election will not be a fight between political parties, but "an insider patron-client fight, with various oligarchic clans competing to have the upper-hand insider hand and ultimately a greater slice of the pie in the kleptocratic so-called 'holy system' that is the Islamic Republic", wrote Aarabi and Golkar.

And as the regime "purges its reformists, it shrinks to its inner core", said The Economist. "Once a hybrid theocracy-cum-democracy, Iran is morphing into an absolute dictatorship with a wobbly base," said the paper. A recent government survey leaked to the BBC Persian service shows "haemorrhaging support for the theocrats" among the people of Iran. According to the poll, support for a separation of religion and state has jumped from 31% in 2015 to 73% today. 

"Yes-men are wonderful when things are calm, but they’re useless under crisis," a political analyst told the paper. "Without an opposition you lose the bridge to the people."

What next?

A low turnout will be problematic for Iran's leadership, "who rely on elections to provide a veil of legitimacy over their regime", said Louise Kettle, assistant professor of international relations at the University of Nottingham, on The Conversation.

And the election is likely to have "a greater significance for the future of the Islamic Republic than normal". As Khamenei is 84 years old, the election of the next supreme leader is likely to happen within the forthcoming eight-year term of the Assembly of Experts – one reason candidate selection has been so restrictive this year. This election "could secure Iranian succession". 

The first results are likely to emerge within the next 24 hours, although the full tally, and what the results mean for Iran's future, "may not be clear for some days".