Week 3: Iranian Elections



Today I will be discussing a quite controversial topic which is the Iranian Elections of 2021. Iran both in our region and in the West is a difficult nation to discuss due to their actions and their fairly contentious and controversial policies. Nevertheless, the elections in Iran were held on the 18th of June 2021 and despite being unfamiliar with the affair at the time I have done some research and now have a good grasp of the subject and how the elections transpired. There were seven candidates approved by the council: Ghazizadeh, Hemmati, Rezaee, Jalili, Zakani, Mehralizadeh and the eventual winner Ebrahim Raisi. Whilst his win was expected and an overwhelming majority voted for the candidate, I personally had trouble choosing between them. 


Overall, I was not particularly impressed by the candidates and having to choose one now was like picking the lesser of all the evils, however I was mainly stuck between both Rezaee and Hemmati. I eventually opted for Rezaee, however what intrigued me about Hemmati was the fact that he was the only non-conservative to be approved by the council and he had a reformist plan in place. This could have been like a breath of fresh air for Iran and I was particularly interested in his openness to diplomatic ties with the West. He even claimed he would meet with President Biden. 


However, despite this new and interesting take on an Iranian president, I believe it would be very difficult for someone like him to consolidate power in Iran due to his liberal views. I therefore would have voted for Rezaee. He firstly has a cult of personality and could lead Iran through charismatic authority. He certainly fits the bill as he was even previously a member of a guerrilla group. This allowed me to spark a connection between both him and Castro and that is where the charismatic authority view initially started from. Additionally, what sets him apart from his predecessors and his competitors is that before this he was not a politician per-say. This therefore allowed him to maintain high levels of popularity amongst the public as the citizens related to him. Yet, at the same time he also has very close political ties to members of the regime, most notably Ayatollah Khamenei. This would make him a great leader due to his ties to both the government in a public, therefore he could serve as a vessel and help both sides interact and coordinate effectively.


I was also surprised by his economic policy. He worked as an economic affairs analyst previously and despite going against his team and working on his own, he was able to effectively increase the wealth of the poor, slightly closing the wage gap. During the elections he also promised that he would stabilize the Iranian Rial. 

Therefore, due to the aforementioned reasons, I believe if I was an Iranian citizen I would most likely vote for Mohsen Rezaee. 

Comments

  1. Sophia AcquistaOctober 26, 2022 at 8:40 AM

    Khalid,
    I totally understand your feelings about having to choose between "the lesser of the evils" when it comes to elections, for I often feel the same way in American elections. I think you do a great job of describing the contention in this race, even though a mass majority voted for Raisi. I understand why you picked Rezaee over Hemmati too, for though Hemmati's wants for the Iranian government are absolutely most ideal, they don't match the political culture and more often conservative ruling in Iran.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Adam MastDecember 20, 2022 at 12:42 PM

    although you mention Mohsen is a lesser of the evils, to what degree do you believe he would improve the Iranian state? I guess I am skeptical of the ability of these candidates to encourage any remarkable change. Are there any specific, generally positive changes that you believe Mohsen could somewhat easily enact?

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