The Supreme Leader leads supremely

The bleak outlook for the June 14 Iranian elections was discussed yesterday at the Woodrow Wilson Center.  Panelists Ali Vaez, Barbara Slavin and Meir Javendafar weighed in on the likely front runners.  A second discussion at Brookings was not for attribution.

The bottom line is clear.  The Guardian Council has exercised its authority to eliminate the more interesting candidates and limit competition.  There is little likelihood of fundamental change. The disputed the 2009 presidential election has made the Supreme Leader extra cautious.  He thinks it is better to prevent dissent by controlling the selection of candidates, rather than deal with an angry population after the votes have been counted. Nothing will be left to chance.

The election will exclude President Ahmedinejad and his friends from positions of power and strengthen the position of Supreme Leader Khamenei.  But Ahmedinejad may remain influential after the election by using his knowledge of corruption and electoral fraud to challenge the establishment.

All remaining eight candidates make up in loyalty to the Supreme Leader what they lack in charisma.  Possible front runners include:

• Saeed Jalili, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, is uncontroversial and willing to work with other political factions.  His election would help the Supreme Leader, to whom he is notably loyal, to marginalize the presidency.
• Hassan Rowhani, another former nuclear negotiator, and Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, the current mayor of Tehran, are popular, centrist candidates, but both likely more independent than the Supreme Leader wants.

Six of the eight candidates were appointed by the Supreme Leader at some point in their careers. Khamanei wants a president who will stay loyal to him and to his vision as he gets older and weaker.

The Iranian leadership plans to keep the election lackluster in an attempt to prevent the growing undercurrent of dissent from spilling over. Candidates will not even be participating in televised debates. Voter turnout is expected to be historically low, though the state media may report record high turnout. Slavin quipped about the 2009 elections:

80% of the population sat a home and watched the news report that 70% of the population had turned out to vote.

From the US perspective, election of Rowhani might seem the best outcome, as he is the closest thing left in the race to someone interested in reform.  But he would also likely be the one most at odds with the Supreme Leader.  On the nuclear issue in particular, any division in the Iranian regime, as occurred under Ahmedinejad, could cause paralysis rather than generate progress.

The odds of success in the nuclear negotiation are in any case slim.  The Iranians see the US as having taken its best shot with sanctions whose impact has been absorbed and is now declining.  With time, they figure the sanctions will fray.  The aging and ossified Khamenei is extraordinarily suspicious and cautious.  For him to decide in his dotage that what Iran really needs is an agreement with the United States to limit Iran’s nuclear program would be out of character.

Revival of the Green opposition, defeat in Syria or a sharp drop in oil prices are all possible “black swans” that could dramatically affect the situation, before or after the election.  But all seem unlikely this year.