Presidential elections are to be in Iran on 18th June 2021. This will be the 13th Presidential elections in Iran. The Interior Ministry released the official list of candidates by the Guardian Council on 25th May 2021. The Candidates include:
- Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh
Current member of the Islamic Consultative Assembly
- Abdlolnaser Hemmati
Former Governor of the Central Bank - Ebrahim Raisi
Current Chief Justice of Iran - Mohsen Rezaee
Former Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps - Alireza Zakani
- Saeed Jalili
- Mohsen Mehralizadeh
Independent candidate
Guardian Council
The council is responsible for deciding as to who runs for the elections in Iran. Out of the 529 people who registered to be a part of the elections only 18 were approved by the council.
The council has been increasing its control over the candidates’ list as it is believed that the Islamic Republic is at a turning point and in need to “Purify the revolution”. The Guardian council has been making sure to carefully work on the election procedure so that the results are acceptable to the supreme leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei.
Khamenei’s vision
In the 1990’s, Khamenei enlisted five essential stages of successful Islamic revolution
- Islamic revolution
- Establishment of an Islamic regime
- Establishment of an Islamic Government
- Establishment of an Islamic society
- Establishment of an Islamic Civilisation
Since the publishing of a manifesto in 2019, he has been working towards achieving these goals. In 2020 elections, he filled the Iranian Parliament with his supporters. The 2021 elections will be the last stage for him to fulfil his agenda for the completion of his third stage that is Islamic Government.
Power of the President
The highest level of the power remains with the supreme leader. The president has limited power and his duties include nominating Cabinet members and proposing the budget. Even these powers cab be controlled by the supreme leader.
New regulations
According to the new restrictions, the candidates must be between 40 to 27 year old. The candidates are required to be Shiite Muslim which excludes minorities such as Sunni Muslims, Christians, Jews and Baha.
Tasks at Hand
The New President first and major task will be to uplift the US sanctions after they left the nuclear deal in 2018. So, uplifting the sanctions on oil and banking sector will be the first on agenda as the economy has seen zero growth since 2017. Also, the Covid-19 situation has brought more challenges to the economy as the death toll in Iran has been the highest in the Middle East.
With the Given preparations over the elections, there have been reports about the elections being stacked in favour of one man which is Ebrahim Raisi. Iran works on the mixture of Islamic components and republic components. The Supreme leader of Iran handles the Foreign Policy, Media, Judiciary and Special Forces named as Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps while the elected president gives the direction to government and works with the supreme leader on Domestic and Foreign Policy. But at the last the Supreme leader overrules all the decisions.
After the sanctions by the US in 2018, economy has been worst hit. Inflation and unemployment are also at the highest point and Covid has made things worse than before. So this election is being seen as a chance to bring economic stability and security to Iran. US and Iran are also on the table to restored the Nuclear Deal among others and there is a huge possibility of it being resolved.
But the major question that will be answered tomorrow that how many people will come out to vote as the turnout for 2020 election was only 42.6%.
