Over the past week, the Iranian government has been actively encouraging reluctant voters to engage with the presidential election campaigns for the six hand-picked candidates featured on state TV.
Nonetheless, the latest polls in Iran show that some 60 percent of eligible voters are still adamant not to take part in the June 28 election. Also, a new survey conducted by one of the country's most reliable polling agencies ISPA, resulted in total embarrassment for the government as it showed that more than 73 percent of Iranian chose not to watch the televised debates between the candidates.
Voter turnout began to decline in the 2020 parliamentary elections, when hundreds of insider politicians who did not belong to the hardliner camp were barred. The same politically motivated vetting by the un-elected Guardian Council was repeated in the 2021 presidential and the March 2024 parliamentary elections. From a high of 70% in 2017, turnout has declined to around 40%.
The government has tried many tricks and techniques to grab TV viewers' attention including a sneak preview of candidates' family life by bringing the daughters of the candidates to the studios to talk about their father and other matters. Massoud Pezeshkian, Mostafa Pourmohammadi and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf sent their daughters to state TV studios.
Pourmohammadi's daughter Monireh, outshined the other two as a Ph.D. candidate in Economics who explained her father's economic policies.
In an odd behavior, Saeed Jalili sent his likeminded former chief of staff at the Supreme Council of National Security, Amir Hossein Sabeti, now one of the new "revolutionary" lawmakers, instead of his daughter. Persian social media burst into all kinds of jokes and ironies about the episode.
In another possibly pre-planned show one of the "experts" interviewing Pezeshkian traded insults and verbal attack with one of Pezeshkian's advisers, renowned sociologist Mohammad Fazeli, who subsequently dashed out of the studio in protest after the TV host cut his microphone off.
Even more significant than the fight is the fact that the hardliner-dominated state TV, where Jalili's brother happens to be in charge, allowed a personae non grata like Fazeli to enter its live TV studios.
Pezeshkian's campaign subsequently posted a meme on the social media platform X that showed other than Jalili's brother, several other individuals linked to Jalili controlled the state TV.
If this seems odd, consider that selected intellectuals and commentators are now being allowed to give interviews to Persian-speaking satellite channels outside Iran about the elections. Previously, they were warned that speaking to those channels was illegal and could land them in jail.
One well-known outspoken commentator told Iran International that authorities approached him, saying it was now permissible to talk with foreign-based television channels. He agreed to do so only if they provided a written guarantee that he would not be punished or criticized for it after the election. Unsurprisingly, the guarantee never materialized.
Another commentator, a leading reformist figure, told a London-based channel that the government gave the commentators the go ahead to talk to the foreign-based channels to prepare the mood for a high turnout in the election.
Despite all this and more, the Iranian state TV cannot be certain by any means that it can help attract more attention to the election and encourage voters to go to the polls. The 73 percent that did not watch the first debate on TV are only some of the viewers who do not trust the broadcaster. The state TV's viewership has been constantly declining during recent years.
