NEW DELHI — Snap polls to elect the new Iranian President saw a new low in turnout and went into a runoff, as widely predicted. However, the position of the two candidates for the run-off - the first since 2005 - is revealing about public sentiments, the limitations of political labelling, and more significantly, the divergent mood in the establishment.
Masoud Pezeshkian, the sole reformist candidate allowed in the race after being debarred in 2021, secured first place with 10.41 million votes, ahead of his ultra-conservative rival and former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, with 9.47 million, out of the 24.5 million votes cast, or just about 40 per cent of the 61 million-odd electorate.
Surprisingly, Majles Speaker and former Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, whom some polls had tipped as a prime contender over both Pezeshkian and Jalili, was the distant third with 3.38 million votes, while, the only cleric in the contest, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, had to be content with 206,397 votes
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani and Vice President Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi - both conservatives - had quit days before Friday's election.
The vote count suggests that the combined votes of the conservatives in the run-off next Friday will be enough to propel Jalili to victory - unless more voters from the widely disenchanted abstaining majority jettison their apathy and head to the polling booths to support Pezeshkian.
In the present instance, appeals for support to him by former Presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hasan Rouhani and former Foreign Minister Javed Zarif did not seem to have been enough to galvanise the reformist-leaning vote.
While Qalibaf, Zakani and Ghazizadeh have now asked their supporters to vote for Jalili in the run-off in order to ensure victory for the “revolution front”, Pourmohammadi's response was more meaningful and nuanced.
"Greetings to all of you who came to vote on June 29, and respect to all of you who did not believe us and did not come. Your presence and absence are full of messages that I hope will be heard. Your message is clear and unambiguous," he said in a social media message.
In fact, Pourmohammadi, who though deemed a conservative and targetted for his role in extrajudicial executions in the 1980s - along with late President Ebrahim Raisi, whose death in a helicopter crash last month, caused the election, surprised people with his disapproval of internet bans. He also batted for more women's participation in the Majles.
His stand may be seen as unexpected not unprecedented - since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran had eight Presidents, out of which five were clerics, spanning from hardline conservatives (current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Raisi), to moderative conservative (Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani), to reformists (Mohammad Khatami and Hasan Rouhani).
On the other hand, the relative performances of Jalili, an acknowledged hardliner and Qalibaf, who sought to portray himself as a more pragmatic conservative - or the fact that both remained in the contest, raises some interesting questions.
Jalili, who had contested the 2013 poll but lost to Rouhani and filed nominations in 2021 where he withdrew in favour of Raisi, and Qalibaf, who was also a rather perennial Presidential candidate (2005, 2013, 2017), like former IRGC commander Mohsen Rezaee (2005, 2009, 2013, 2021), have many similarities.
Both are close to Supreme Leader Khamenei and the IRGC and have extensive security credentials with Jalili being a nuclear deal negotiator and currently the Supreme Leader's representative to the Supreme National Security Council, while Qalibaf was a former commander of the IRGC air force and then, the country's chief of police.
However, Qalibaf, who secured the endorsement of prominent security establishment figures like Major General Rezaee (retd) and former Defence Minister and navy chief, Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani, among others. ended up securing nearly one-third of the votes that Jalili got, indicating the establishment does not think or operate in a monolith manner. However, the more doctrinaire element seems to be maintaining its predominance over the realistic part.
With Jalili favourite to win in the run-off as the conservative votes coalesce, it is tempting to view his Presidency as a continuation of the Raisi era as he was a key influence on the late President, but the situation is not so clear-cut.
While foreign or nuclear policy may not see many changes under Jalili - or for that matter, under Pezeshkian, for all his rhetoric, given the limitations of the President's role, both have a policy overlap in several domestic issues, particularly, on economic development, welfare and employment creation. However, Pezeshkian is more upfront on social issues, especially the role of the morality police, which he opposes.
However, it remains to be seen if more reformists, enthused by the prospect of a Pezeshkian win, will turn out.