Iran is preparing to hold an early presidential election following the death of former president Ebrahim Raisi. The election is scheduled for June, 28th with six candidates competing to secure popular votes and find their way to the Sa’dabad palace. To cover the political developments taking place in Iran, Al-Sarira has conducted a series of interviews with analysts and commentators working and researching on Iran and the wider Middle East. Mr. Malino Dinucci, geographer and geopolitical scientist, has accepted to attend our interview as the second guest.
Thank you, Mr. Dinucci for accepting our invitation. The Iranian governance has faced a challenge following the death of former president Ebrahim Raisi. While most administrations have worked their two terms, Raisi cabinet is to be dissolved three years after taking the office. How successful do you think the governing system has been in dealing with the emergent condition?
Guided by the tenets of constitution, the Iranian administrative system has coped with the emergency of losing the incumbent president through an early election that seems to have transcended the expectations about popular attention and election excitement. The Iranian people are grappling with a wide range of challenges and difficulties straining their daily life experiences. The zest of an election has been able to inject the Iranian community with high hopes for the improvement of social and economic conditions.
While the candidates and the election setting has endeavored to respect the functioning and achievements of the lost president, the overall electoral atmosphere, kindled by candidates from different political and partisan backgrounds, has rejuvenated the idea of change and overhaul in the basic and significant administrative trends in the country. The trend, in turn, has let the governance to overcome the challenges and obstacles that arose after the death of former president.
The Iranian leaders have always presented the elections as one of the main pillars of their legitimate governance. Maximum turnout has always been a call by the leader and other major administrative agents and renowned figures. How do you think the result of the upcoming election serve the expectations and interests of the governing system?
As noted earlier, the presidential election in Iran seems to have received popular attention provoked by the circumstance that the election is being conducted in. The main candidates of all partisan groups have a good chance of winning the competition, further convincing the supporters of various groups to go to the polls on the election day. That’s why I believe that the governing system has been successful in preparing a setting for the maximum turnout in the upcoming election.
The outcome, whoever wins the election, would serve the Iranian democracy as a nation reliant on the people’s participation to demonstrate its potency and legitimacy. In less than a week, after the election is held, there will be a better estimation of the system’s functioning and its capacity to capitalize on the popular turnout. For now, signals and trends indicate an election atmosphere that would be unexpected a few months ago.
Campaign commitments by the candidates have focused on a large range of issues ranging from the financial problems to political and diplomatic agenda. What are the major challenges that the future president of Iran is going to face after the election?
The cold war era, and more recently the COVID-19 pandemic, have had lessons for nations in their bid to lead the way towards growth and stability. The Iranian nation, who’s been under harsh sanctions during the recent years, have truly felt the agonies of isolation and the ensuing economic constraints. For any candidate taking the power in the weeks to come, healing the scars of western campaigns through an overhaul in the foreign policies may have the utmost significance. That was seemingly the vision of the former president, who despite hardline attitudes towards western powers, demonstrated a flexibility in commencing talks with the United States and had achievements in rising the oil sale.
In Iran, a major part of dissatisfaction is guided by the successive administration’s failure to heal the wounds of the economic system. The people have felt the reverberations of the sanctions in form of unemployment, inflation and depression. I believe that the way to economic recovery goes only through a balanced and stable foreign policy that takes every aspect, including the economy, security, and regional dynamics, into consideration.
The election practice has been the democratic show of the Islamic Republic of Iran following the 1979 revolution. Iran holds elections for top to low executive positions in a bid to bolster its democratic and governance frameworks, giving the people a chance to have direct role in shaping the political, legal, and executive frameworks of the country. How successful has the country been in forming a sustainable democratic model to governance?
Elections, as one of the main practices of the formation of each democracy, has been regularly held in Iran during its less than half a century of governance. Besides, one of the mains steps taken following the toppling of former regime in Iran was to establish a cohesive and just constitution to proceed the governance based on the rule of law. The civic participation has been potent enough for the people to have a feeling of responsibility towards social and pollical developments of the country.
The country has faced challenges regarding the freedom in various sectors, but considering the region it is located in and the ruling systems the neighboring countries have been practicing, the Iranian governance has been able to take significant steps. Iran has also been stumbling regarding transparency and containing the corruption in various parts of the administrate system.
The country has been able to come up with a social cohesion during the years exposing itself in emergent conditions. Iran is made up of various ethnic, sectarian, and religious communities. Tehran’s conduct in injecting a spirit of nationhood has been one of the accomplishments of the current ruling system. To make a fair and accurate assessment, the Iranian ruling system must be contrasted to the eastern European countries, and not the western ones. I believe that Iran is still a nation under formation and more trials and errors are needed to reach a steady system of governance.
Iran has been holding confidential talks with the United States to resolve various issues regarding the Iranian nuclear activity and the economic constraints of the American sanctions. How would the result of the election unfold for the future of talks between the two countries?
It depends. There are multiple factors to the future of the talks including the approaches and priorities of the winner of the election in Iran. Besides, less than five months after the Iranian election, the US elections will be held with the two running candidates having totally divergent views towards Iran and the foreign policy agenda in the Middle East. Iran, as referred to earlier, needs to expand its ties with the world powers to release the constraints it has been facing during the recent years. Tehran clearly knows, as was recognizable in the candidates’ approaches, that without overhauling the foreign policy strategies, no local operation and plans are completely and adequately implementable.
As with the American side, and if Trump wins the elections considering the polls and social trends, the perplexity of the political dynamics of the Middle East hinders reaching a definite, or near-definite, analysis. I suppose that Trump 2024 is horse of a different color from Trump 2016. Despite staging similar lunacy with a vernacular discourse that forms his basic character, Trump, like most other presidents in their second term, having the experience of a failure in the popular vote, has been polished by the prerequisites and exigencies of working at the highest level of an administrative system. I think it might be good news for the rulers in Iran as a more flexible White House means better chances of building a rapport with Washington to lessen the pressures of a worldwide campaign.
Iran has been one of the major actors in the Middle East developments in recent decades. Following the outbreak of war in Gaza, Tehran and its proxies have been actively engaging in multiple fronts. How do you think the new president, considering the Candidates’ views, may impact the Iranian regional activism over the Gaza war and associated escalations?
Iranian strategy in the region has been to bolster proxy militia through which it seeks two main goals; first, Tehran means to avoid direct confrontation with regional states and other influential actors like the United States. Iran’s activism in Iraq and Yemen following the October 7 escalations provided the country with a security shield that bore little consequence for the country. Second, Tehran keeps up with the agenda of countering western powers and Israel by harassing regional states that abide by the strategies and plans of these forces in the region. Under this strategic framework, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and other Arab nations have moderated their partnerships and cooperation with the United States and an imminent comprehensive agreement of the Arab world with Israel, that could follow a Saudi Arabian normalization, was hindered for the time being.
The election in Iran and its result may have little impact on the overall Iranian regional agenda. It could parenthetically, however, impact Iranian relationship with neighboring states and, in the middle run, leave its footprints on the approaches and modus operandi of the Iranian activism in the region.
