{"id":96133,"date":"2021-06-19T05:49:09","date_gmt":"2021-06-19T10:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=96133"},"modified":"2021-06-19T05:49:09","modified_gmt":"2021-06-19T10:49:09","slug":"auto-draft-564","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2021\/06\/19\/auto-draft-564\/","title":{"rendered":"Iranians Vote in Presidential Election Marked by Low Turnout"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n

\"\"VOA \u2014 Iranians\u202fvoted Friday in a presidential election\u202fmarked by a low turnout and a lack of formidable rivals to the candidacy of Iran’s ultraconservative judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi.<\/p>\n

There were no official estimates of the turnout from Iran’s Interior Ministry as polling stations closed at 2 a.m. Saturday local time. Authorities had extended Friday’s vote by two hours past the original midnight closing time in the hope of seeing more voters make it to the polls.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Iran’s semi-official\u202fFars\u202fnews agency reported that 37% of the country’s 59 million eligible voters had cast ballots\u202fby 7:30\u202fp.m.\u202flocal time.\u202fThere was no confirmation of that tally from the Interior Ministry, which was managing the election.<\/p>\n

Analysts said much of Iran’s electorate appeared disenchanted with their Islamist rulers for mismanaging an economy ravaged by U.S. sanctions, a prolonged pandemic and official corruption.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\"Voters<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>
Voters queue at a polling station during the presidential elections in Tehran, Iran, June 18, 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Iranian state-approved pollsters had predicted before the election that the turnout percentage\u202fcould end up in the low 40s, which would mark a record low for a presidential election since Iran’s\u202f1979 Islamic Revolution,\u202fin which its ruling Shiite clerics seized power from a collapsing monarchy.\u202fThe previous low turnout was 50% in 1993<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Social media posts from inside Iran also indicated that\u202fvoting\u202fwas light at polling stations around the country. Iranian state TV showed\u202fclose-ups\u202fof\u202fvoting lines\u202fat some\u202fsites\u202fas\u202fleading political figures implored\u202fpeople to vote. Among them were Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, outgoing President Hassan Rouhani, who is ending an eight-year term, and\u202fleading presidential candidate Raisi, a\u202fKhamenei\u202fprotege\u202fwhom\u202fmany Iranians expect to easily\u202fwin\u202fthe race.<\/p>\n

Iran’s Guardian Council,\u202fthe constitutional watchdog tasked with approving candidates, allowed only Raisi and six other\u202flesser-known\u202fKhamenei loyalists to run in the election, barring hundreds of other presidential hopefuls,\u202fincluding several\u202fpoliticians\u202fwho have prominent public profiles\u202fcomparable to Raisi’s.\u202fThe disqualifications\u202fsparked a\u202fweekslong campaign\u202fby\u202fKhamenei’s\u202fIranian critics inside and\u202foutside the country\u202fto encourage\u202fa boycott\u202fof what they described as a sham election.<\/p>\n

“I believe the low turnout will lead to a worsening crisis of legitimacy for the\u202fIranian\u202fregime,” said\u202fLadan Boroumand, a director of U.S.-based rights group\u202fAbdorrahman\u202fBoroumand Center, in a VOA Persian TV interview on Friday. “That\u202fis\u202fwhy the\u202fruling\u202fsystem has always\u202fput emphasis\u202fon\u202fvoter\u202fparticipation and\u202fused\u202fall\u202fpossible\u202fmeans to bring people to the polls.”<\/p>\n

Elahe Boghrat, chief editor of Iranian diaspora news site Kayhan London, told VOA Persian that many Iranians voted with their feet by staying away from the ballot boxes. “This stance is a big no to the Islamic republic,” she said.<\/p>\n

Three of the seven approved presidential candidates withdrew from the contest on Wednesday, two of them ultraconservatives like Raisi and one a relative moderate. The narrowed field made Friday\u2019s election a contest between Raisi, two other ultraconservatives and one relative moderate, former central bank chief Abdolnasser Hemmati.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If none of them wins an outright majority, a runoff election would be held one week later. Results from Friday\u2019s vote were expected to be released on Saturday at midday local time.<\/p>\n

Raisi, who campaigned on a pledge to fight corruption, would be the first Iranian president to take office while under U.S. sanctions if he wins. Washington has sanctioned Raisi for alleged involvement in Iran\u2019s mass executions of political prisoners in the late 1980s.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\"Ebrahim<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>
Ebrahim Raisi, a candidate in Iran’s presidential elections, raises his hands as he casts his vote at a polling station in Tehran, Iran, June 18, 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Khamenei in charge<\/strong><\/p>\n

Regardless of who wins, Khamenei remains Iran\u2019s ultimate decision-maker in matters of foreign and nuclear policy. All the approved presidential candidates backed his decision to engage in indirect talks with the U.S. in Vienna in recent months in the hope of reaching a deal for an easing of U.S. sanctions on the Iranian economy.<\/p>\n

President Joe Biden\u2019s administration has said it could ease the sanctions if Iran agreed to resume curbs on nuclear activities that could be weaponized. Tehran accepted those limits in return for relief from international sanctions as part of a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. But Iran began violating the nuclear curbs in 2019 in retaliation for then-President Donald Trump\u2019s decision the previous year to withdraw from the JCPOA and unilaterally tighten U.S. sanctions.<\/p>\n

Trump said the JCPOA did not do enough to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons \u2013 a goal it denies having \u2013 or engaging in other objectionable activities. Biden has said a mutual U.S. and Iranian return to JCPOA compliance would be a precursor to a U.S. effort to negotiate a stronger and longer agreement addressing other issues.<\/p>\n

Farhad Rezaei, an Iranian politics professor at Canada\u2019s York University, told VOA Persian TV in another Friday interview that an election victory for Raisi, a more conservative figure than the outgoing Rouhani, could make it tougher for Biden to persuade Iran to reach a follow-up agreement to the JCPOA.<\/p>\n

“But\u202fbecause\u202fIran’s\u202fforeign policy,\u202fespecially\u202frelating to\u202fthe U.S.,\u202fis the exclusive domain of\u202fKhamenei, whoever becomes the\u202fnext\u202fpresident\u202fis\u202flikely to\u202ffollow the same long-established rules,” Rezaei said.<\/p>\n

The next Iranian president, who can serve a maximum of two four-year terms, also could be a contender to replace Khamenei, 82. Khamenei served as Iranian president himself before being appointed supreme leader in 1989.<\/p>\n

Khamenei hopes a victorious Raisi will help clean up some of the systemic corruption in Iran’s power structures, said Prague-based Iranian journalist Behnam Gholipour, speaking to VOA Persian.<\/p>\n

“If Khamenei deems Raisi a success, I think he will propose Raisi to succeed him.”<\/p>\n

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VOA \u2014 Iranians\u202fvoted Friday in a presidential election\u202fmarked by a low turnout and a lack of formidable rivals to the candidacy of Iran’s ultraconservative judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi. There were no official estimates of the turnout from Iran’s Interior Ministry as polling stations closed at 2 a.m. Saturday local time. Authorities had extended Friday’s vote […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":96134,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latests"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96133"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96136,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96133\/revisions\/96136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}