Understanding Iran’s election engineering and its global ramifications

The victory of Masoud Pezeshkian at the Iranian presidential elections as seen on the day after

Siyavash Shahabi, The Fire Next Time, 6 July 2024

The post discusses the intricate political dynamics in Iran involving its relationships with Russia, the West, and China. It highlights Interior Minister’s statement on a “new era” and Vladimir Putin’s concern about Iran-Russia relations amid presidential elections.

The narrative points to Iran’s need to engage with the West to ease sanctions and stabilize economically, with clandestine negotiations likely underway. The post also touches on Iran’s military policies and the shifting strategic importance of Hezbollah over Palestinian groups.

It introduces Pezeshkian as Khamenei’s favored candidate, emphasizing his loyalty and intent to implement approved plans while appearing as a reformist to boost electoral participation. However, voter turnout remains a challenge, reflecting public disillusionment amidst repressive and engineered political scenarios.

In this engineering, Pezeshkian was the preferred candidate of Khamenei and the regime’s power structures and the winner of the election. The Guardian Council’s list at the time of the announcement seemed designed for his victory.

This is also good news for a segment of Zionism in Israel that opposes Netanyahu and his warlike policies. This powerful lobby will certainly create many challenges for the next U.S. president in reaching a long-term agreement with Iran. The era of Netanyahu and maintaining fear and terror of war in Israel has ended.

But the problem of the Islamic regime is not similar to that of Brazil or Greece. It is more akin to Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. The issue with Iranian capitalism is not economic; it is political, ideological, and governmental.

The headlines in Iran are very interesting. The first headline is from the Interior Minister who has said that we have entered a “new era in the history of the Islamic Republic.” Yes, why not. Putin has also been warning for weeks that relations between Iran and Russia should not change because of the elections and the appointment of a new president. Obviously the Islamic Republic needs relations with the West more than with Russia. Therefore, Putin was more concerned than anyone else about the policies of the Islamic Republic after the election show.

From this perspective, it was clear where this election engineering will lead. Negotiations with the West (perhaps secretly underway, like during Ahmadinejad’s time which even himself didn’t know about it!) to lift sanctions and expand economic relations with the West are very likely, especially now that Iran has put vital economic routes at risk with its proxy forces. The Commander-in-Chief of the IRGC said two days ago that “no country dares to stop our ships anymore because we did the same to them.”

From October 7th until Raisi’s death, this policy was seriously pursued, and now with the coming to power of a so-called reformist state advocating free relations with the West, it will certainly follow this path.

That’s why Russia has been seeking a comprehensive long-term agreement with Iran for the past two weeks, and they are still working on the details. By providing reliable assurances to Russia, Iran is paving the way for long-term agreements with the West. Meanwhile, China has shown that it is solely focused on expanding economic relations and, unlike Russia, has no desire to interfere in Iran’s internal affairs. China’s expansion relations with Persian Gulf countries and Iran being left with only Russia is one of the motivations towards reaching an agreement with the West. China will gain many benefits from expanding relations with Iran, but the Islamic Republic’s provocative military policies have hindered this expansion for more than a decade.

From this point, Palestinian resistance no longer holds the same strategic importance for Islamic regime as it once did. In fact, its position is even less valuable to the Islamic Republic than that of the Houthis in Yemen. Instead, it is Hezbollah’s position in Lebanon that has been strengthened to the extent that Nasrallah even dares to threaten Cyprus. With a global consensus forming to recognize a Palestinian state, Hezbollah will become the main protector of this newly established state, rather than Hamas and other Palestinian groups. At best, these groups will become tools for suppressing dissent within Palestine and ensuring the Islamist’s hold on power, without playing a significant role in fighting for or securing Palestine as a member of the United Nations.

These are significant scenarios that will be worth discussing after the U.S. presidential elections.

But Why Do People Vote?

Pezeshkian’s background is clear: loyal to Khamenei and the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist, he has never effectively intervened in key areas such as foreign policy, security, defense, and military matters, always following the leader’s directives according to his own statements. He is a favorable figure for negotiating with the West, even though the main control remains with Khamenei’s key agents and the power institutions.

Pezeshkian does not present himself as a program developer but as an executor of approved plans, and he reiterated this stance during the election campaign and debates. He promises to make the regime more efficient, poses no threat to Khamenei and the power institutions, does not exacerbate internal divisions within the system, and will try to mend these rifts. He has co-opted the slogans of reformists and some protesters, encouraging reformists to participate in the election and then support his government, and ultimately the regime, by offering them a proportional share in the government.

The reality is that following the brutal repression of popular uprisings and the incompetence of the democratic opposition in offering a powerful alternative, alongside the harsh suppression of the Iranian left even abroad by forces supporting Islamic fascism, and in addition to the spread of fear and thuggery by the far-right (like the Mujahideen and royalists), who are generally supported by Western governments, different groups of people are so desperate and hopeless that instead of hoping for improvement, they think about avoiding the worsening of the country’s situation by a more conservative state. This is the situation that allows the regime to engineer elections in Iran within a false dichotomy of reformists versus hardliners.

Although Pezeshkian’s tactic to increase voter turnout and participation was not very effective, he managed to succeed against a more conservative opponent who only had conspiracy theories and accusations of him being pro-Western. This image of him is also acceptable in the West.

The Islamic Republic is at an impasse because, in an era of global capital scarcity, the failure of development strategies based on domestic market support, the globalization of capital, and the key role of Western capital and technology in industrial production, and the era of free markets and technological competition for transnational markets, it remains an “Islamic Republic.” The Iranian worker, considering the overall level of industrial, technical, and practical ability, is among the cheapest in the world.

But even if wages were reduced to zero and strikes were met with executions, Iran would still not transform into an economic zone with an organic relationship with Western capitalism. The problem of the Iranian regime is not similar to that of Brazil. It is more akin to Russia. The issue with Iranian capitalism is not economic; it is political, ideological, and governmental.

Photo: Night Tehran (source: Photo by Kamran Gholami from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-a-city-at-night-3799176/CC0)