On Friday, Iranians will go to the polls to elect members of Parliament and the Assembly of Experts. Here’s why this matters.
It is an 88-member clerical council that has the task of monitoring the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 76, and that is nominally in charge of naming a successor when he dies. However, since the supreme leader has the final say on all policy matters, the monitoring function is minimal. And analysts say that the choice of a successor to Ayatollah Khamenei will in all likelihood be deemed too important to be left to the assembly, which will instead confirm candidates chosen by Iran’s informal power centers in the clergy, military and business circles.
Q. How do the parliamentary elections work?
Parliamentary elections are held every four years. There are no parties, just individual candidates — 6,000 of them vying for 290 seats, and often without presenting a specific political program. The candidates fall roughly into three factions: reformist, moderate and hard-line. Each faction presents lists of multiple candidates, and voters usually pick one of the lists and spend at least 15 minutes filling in all the names by hand. For Iran’s main constituency, Tehran, there are 30 seats allocated in Parliament, meaning that voters will have to fill in 30 names.
Q. How are the candidates chosen?
Anyone can apply, but in both elections, the candidates (men and women, clerics and civilians) are then vetted by a group of gatekeepers, the 12 members of the Guardian Council, to ensure they are “good Muslims” and support the Islamic republic. This year, the council disqualified almost half of the more than 12,000 candidates who signed up to participate, many — if not most — of them reformists. The most prominent candidate to be disqualified was Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the founder of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who was running for the Assembly of Experts.
Q. What does the Parliament do? Does it have any real power?
A. While its powers are theoretically absolute, in practice they are limited. Nevertheless, the Parliament is far from a rubber stamp. It can propose legislation, or it can block legislation proposed by the government. Over the years, it has impeached dozens of ministers. Senior lawmakers who have risen to high-ranking positions can wield considerable influence on public policy.
Q. Do Iranians care about the elections, given that the candidates for Parliament and the Assembly of Experts have been handpicked by conservatives and that the supreme leader has the final say in all matters?
A. You would think not, especially after the disappointment of 2009, when the government brutally crushed a rebellion over perceived vote-rigging in the re-election of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But many Iranians look upon the elections as an opportunity to cast a “revenge vote,” the only occasion they have to come back at the hard-liners many of them intensely despise. On social media, people are sharing clips of hard-liners in Parliament speaking out against the nuclear deal that Iran sealed with the Western powers this year, saying, “Let’s get rid of these guys.”
They have done it before. Iran’s vast middle class feels it achieved a victory in 2013 in electing the moderate Hassan Rouhani as president over the hard-line candidates.
Q. Speaking of the president, how critical are the elections for him going forward?
A. Mr. Rouhani came to power promising two things: a nuclear deal and subsequent relief from crushing economic sanctions; and some increases in personal liberties, with more freedom on the Internet and other areas, and relief from the morality police. He had hoped to capitalize on the momentum from the nuclear deal to win the support in Parliament to carry through on the second part of his promise.
But with the vetting that has taken place in the selection of the candidates, the best he can hope for now is a strong minority of reformists and moderates in the new Parliament — and that is if Iran’s more liberal-leaning urbanites turn out in force.
Q. What is the supreme leader’s role in the elections? Can he influence the outcome?
A. Ayatollah Khamenei,
according to the Constitution, cannot decide to annul the vote, nor does he openly endorse any candidates. Parliament and the Assembly of Experts are officially independent powers, but Parliaments — particularly the departing one — take their cues from him. The Guardian Council has played the biggest role in shaping the elections, by disqualifying thousands of candidates. While Ayatollah Khamenei appoints six of the 12 council members directly, it is unclear if he wields direct influence in the process.
Q. Will the elections lead to any change in Iran’s relations with Western countries
A. Yes and no. Ayatollah Khamenei has been adamant that the nuclear deal was not the first step in a broad reconciliation with the West. He was equally clear this week that he expected the new Parliament to have an anti-Western cast.
Iran’s foreign policy, firmly controlled by the supreme leader, also seems unlikely to change, with Tehran favoring relations with Russia, China and, to some extent, Europe. But it continues to rule out relations with the United States, and it will persist in seeking to advance Shiite interests as a dominant regional power.
But a huge turnout for the moderate and reformist factions could change things. It might allow Mr. Rouhani to at least continue establishing relations with Europe with less pressure and obstacles raised by the hard-liners. His aim is to nurture more interaction with the West as part of a long-term strategy to lower the cultural and political barriers.
A hard-line victory would not endanger the nuclear deal, since Ayatollah Khamenei signed off on it.
Q. When will we know the outcome?
A. That is hard to say. Because of the complications presented by the list voting system, the individual winners will be identified slowly, perhaps beginning late Saturday and into Sunday, and maybe as late as Monday. But even then, because there are no parties as such, it will still be hard to detect which faction did best. Early clues will come from the Tehran list, which is representative of the country’s dominant urban vote
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