While Western observers often write and speak about the importance of the presidential election in Iran, arguing that this election has the potential to shape the future of Iran and to set the course of Iran’s foreign policy – they are wrong. The role of president in the Islamic Republic is not as powerful as one might think.
Historically, Iranian presidents have had very little impact on either domestic or foreign policy. He cannot make change. In effect, the president has limited power with an impressive title.
This powerlessness of the president is built into the election selection process. In Iran, candidates are not the leading figures in their political party. Candidates do not win primary elections. Candidates can throw their hats into the proverbial ring, but it is not the electorate that chooses who will eventually run. Candidates are determined by a body called the Guardian Council. They determine who can run for president.
The Iranian Guardian Council is composed of 12 people. Six of them are high clerics, six are lawyers. These 12 people, all appointed by the grand ayatollah, are responsible for – among other duties – approving candidates for the presidency, supervising elections and interpreting the Iranian constitution. They are very powerful people. Three weeks before the election, the council will post a list of those who will be running for the presidency. This year, that list will come out on May 26. And it will probably contain only six names.
In the last presidential election in 2017, the Guardian Council’s list of candidates was also a mere six people long. Six out of the 1,636 people who applied to run. And among those people who applied and were rejected was former Iranian president from 2005 to 2013, famed hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It wasn’t the first time something like that happened.
The council is so powerful that it has actually disqualified sitting presidents and prevented them from running for reelection as an incumbent. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was president from 1989 to 1997. The council did not recommend him for reelection. Rafsanjani was not just a regular old politician. He was an extremely high-ranking ayatollah and thought of as a potential successor to the grand ayatollah. But not in the eyes or minds of the Guardian Council members.
And while Western analysts often write and speak about the potential for reforms and changes in Iran and look to candidates who might bring change to the country, they are, once again, wrong.
There can be no reform and no change in Iran because the Guardian Council will never let it happen. And they will never let it happen because that is how it is enshrined in the Iranian constitution. It makes no difference who holds the title of president – liberal reform cannot be enacted by the president. According to Article 4 of the constitution, all laws must be Islamic. And the Guardian Council decides whether they are or are not Islamic.
And who appoints these all powerful high clergy and lawyers to sit on this all powerful Guardian Council, the most powerful person in all of Iran? The grand ayatollah, of course.
It is the grand ayatollah who really runs the country and who determines domestic and foreign policy. The grand ayatollah and no one else.
One name that will almost certainly not appear on the soon-to-be released name of presidential candidates is the name Hassan Khomeini. The grandson of ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Iranian Revolution, Hassan has gathered a significant following by running in the press and reviving his grandfather’s slogan “all of us together.” He has also been publicly critical of the regime. His popularity got him a meeting with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the grand ayatollah, who informed the relative youngster not to run for the presidency.
Iran may claim to be a democracy, but it is anything but a democracy.
Why then is it important for us to monitor this election? Because we need to make ourselves aware of trends and movement within Iran. Because if there is ever a chance of change in Iran, it will be a grassroots movement; it will have to come from the masses. And one of the only ways the masses in Iran have to show their true feeling is by ignoring the list that is handed to them and by refusing to vote.
It’s not the president who will change the course of history in Iran, it is the people.
The writer is a columnist and a social and political commentator.