Deciphering the Multitude of Candidates in Iran's Presidential Vote

Karbaschi, a prominent figure in the centrist, pro-reform Executives of Construction Party, said, "They [the government] have turned the country's main symbol of democracy into a stand-up comedy," amid the sham elections which will ultimately nominate someone chosen by the country's Supreme Leader.

Karbaschi, a close ally of former President Mohammad Khatami, was previously arrested and imprisoned on corruption charges in a case that the New York Times described as "widely seen among moderates as a politically motivated attack" by conservatives and hard-liners. It was perceived as an effort to suppress Khatami's reformist agenda.

Echoing Karbaschi's sentiments, Saeed Hajarian, a reformist theorist, also voiced his concerns over the superficiality of the candidate registration for the upcoming presidential election. 

On X, he criticized the absence of substance behind the spectacle: "A neat suit, a few slow steps, showing the ID card, a few camera flashes... That's it! They talk neither of a coherent plan nor of the potential members of an effective cabinet."

The debacle comes in the wake of the sudden death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash on May 19, which precipitated the current snap election set for June 28. With registration ongoing since Thursday and ending Monday, nearly 90 percent of the candidates hail from the pro-regime camp.

The Guardian Council, however, had earlier disqualified him from running in the 2020 legislative elections, and is unlikely to approve him this time either.

The Council dominated by Khamenei’s conservative loyalists has barred hundreds of regime insiders from running in elections since 2020.

The field of candidates is dominated by conservatives and hardliners. 'Reformists' are still undecided about fielding a candidate, and Sadeghi would hardly be chosen as their main candidate.

Sadeghi, a former Shia cleric, wrote on Twitter in 2021, "The function of reformist and moderate governments is to get the system [regime] out of its crises, then the system will throw them away like a used handkerchief."

So far nearly two dozen politicians have registered, including several hardliners close to the Supreme Leader.

The controversial politician, who has been largely sidelined by the regime's ruling core for nearly a decade, arrived at the Interior Ministry to officially submit his credentials and register for the election.

“Today, I have come to once again greet the people of Iran,” he said as he registered his candidacy.

“The challenges we face today in all spheres are far greater than those of 2013," said the former president, pointing out that the economic hardships of the people have exhausted their patience.

Iran is grappling with soaring food prices amidst economic and social turmoil and the devaluation of the rial compounded by regional tensions. The root cause of this alarming price surge lies in Iran's faltering economy, exacerbated by the continuous devaluation of the Iranian rial. The rial has continuously fallen since the inception of the Islamic Republic in 1979, but it turned into a steep fall in 2018 when the United States withdrew from the JCPOA nuclear deal, demanding its revision. Oil export sanctions and international banking restrictions imposed by the Trump administration badly hurt Iran’s oil-dependent economy.

“My top priority will be to address the economic problems of the people," added the former president.

However, registering as a candidate does not mean that a politician can automatically participate in the election. Iran’s governing system has a powerful watchdog called the Guardian Council that vets all candidates and according to obscure criteria decides whose name can be on the ballot.

Asked if he thinks he will be permitted by the Guardian Council to run for the presidency, Ahmadinejad kept silent and just smiled, a video of him at the Interior Ministry shows.

The Guardian Council, loyal to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei barred Ahmadinejad from running in the 2017 and 2021 presidential elections. Following his disqualification in 2017, the hated and loved politician became a vocal critic of the ruling elite’s governance, even going as far as criticizing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

He was not the only well-known figure who was barred from running in mid-2021. Former Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani and former Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri were also barred, opening the path for Ebrahim Raisi to win a low-turnout election as a hardliner candidate.

After Raisi’s victory, Ahmadinejad was apparently put on a short leash and mostly stopped commenting and criticizing. With Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash last month, he came out of the shadows and began commenting about a bright future for Iranians.

Elahian, 57, is a physician and former member of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee. She was elected to parliament twice on the hardliners’ slate.

In her speech following registration, Elahian declared her motto: “Sound government, sound economy, sound society,” and pledged to combat corruption.

Like other hardliners, Elahian supports compulsory hijab rules. In March, Canada imposed sanctions against her for endorsing the death penalty for protesters involved in the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement. Her candidacy comes after months of harsh policies and actions by the government against women who defy compulsory hijab.

Zohreh Elahian enters interior ministry to register

Elahian’s qualification to run hinges on the Guardian Council's interpretation of a controversial article of the Constitution. The Guardian Council, the sole body empowered by the Constitution to interpret it, has historically disqualified female candidates. This disqualification is based on Article 115, which stipulates that candidates must be from among political or religious "rijal" (the plural of "rajul"), a masculine Arabic noun meaning "men."

However, some constitutional experts and politicians interpret "rijal" to mean "figures" or "persons" irrespective of gender, rather than exclusively "men."

Azam Taleghani, a veteran reformist politician and journalist, registered to run in every presidential election from 1997 until her death in 2019. Despite being described as an “Islamic feminist,” Taleghani was rejected by the Guardian Council every time.

In 2009, populist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposed Elahian as Minister of Welfare and Social Security. However, she declined the nomination, citing opposition from senior Shia clerics (maraje’) to women serving as ministers.

Another of Ahmadinejad’s female nominees, hardliner Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi, a physician and former lawmaker, was approved by parliament as Minister of Health, making her the first and only female minister in the history of the Islamic Republic.

Several other political figures registered to run on Saturday, including ultra-hardliner Tehran mayor Alireza Zakani, reformist lawmaker and former first deputy speaker Masoud Pezeshkian, and Vahid Haghanian, a member of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s office.

Haghanian’s registration, dubbed by social media users as the “biggest surprise” of the election registrations, and his motives has baffled observers. Like Elahian, many believe there is no chance he will be qualified to run. Some people even claim he no longer holds a position at Khamenei’s office.

“We were quick to judge about him. He is known as the black box, but he has apparently not held any positions in a long time,” Hossein Ebrahimi, a conservative cleric and politician, tweeted. Ebrahimi added that there is a high possibility of Haghanian’s disqualification, apparently due to open cases with the judiciary.

This may refer to allegations of espionage against him that surfaced in January after the execution of Mohsen Saravani, 24, on charges of spying for Israel. Saravani had been photographed with Haghanian and was said to be close to him. Around the same time Haghanian ceased to appear in public.

Behnam Gholipour, expatriate journalist, in a tweet on Saturday called Haghanian an “scapegoat candidate”. “He will be sacrificed to mask disqualification of others. Then everyone will say Larijani and Ahmadinejad don’t even count [because] Khamenei’s right-hand man was disqualified,” he wrote.

The blackouts have become a symbol of Iran’s broader struggle with an aging and inefficient power grid, impacting everything from ordinary households and industrial centers to major public events and now, political campaigns.

As Vahid Haghanian, a senior figure in the Office of the Supreme Leader, was delivering a speech after registering his candidacy, the lights went out, plunging the event into darkness in front of live media and audience.

The incident has fueled mockery and criticism on social media, with commentators highlighting the irony of power failures amid election promises to solve infrastructure decay.

Critics argue that rather than witnessing progress, Iran is merely scrambling to patch up its crumbling infrastructure. Power cuts are also the result of energy shortage that affects Iran during hot summer and cold winter months, despite the country having the world's second largest natural gas reserves.

The power crisis has already caused disruptions in the industrial sector, triggering a drop in production and rising costs due to frequent power cuts and voltage instability.

Recent data from Iranian officials show a sharp decline in the country’s net electricity exports, attributed to several factors, including high domestic consumption fueled by heavily subsidized electricity rates, which the government fears to adjust due to potential public unrest.

Furthermore, the Iranian government's economic policies, marked by inefficiency and mismanagement, along with the impact of international sanctions, have deteriorated the energy sector's performance.