The Iranians vet Iranians choose this Friday without much enthusiasm a new president in an election which should consecrate the victory of the ultra-conservative Ebrahim Raïssi in a country hit hard by a serious economic and social crisis.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei opened the ballot by voting a few minutes after 7:00 a.m.

He called on the 59.3 million Iranians of voting age to fulfill their civic "duty" "as soon" as possible.

After three weeks of a lackluster election campaign, against a backdrop of general dissatisfaction with the serious economic crisis, the authorities have decided to extend the opening period of the polling stations, until midnight with a extension possible until 2 a.m. on Saturday.

It is officially a question of allowing as many people as possible to go to the polls, while the country is hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The final results of the poll are expected at midday on Saturday.

Towards a record abstention

According to the rare polls available, abstention could reach an unprecedented level and exceed the record of 57% recorded in the legislative elections of 2020. In 2017, President Hassan Rohani, a moderate advocating a policy of openness with the West and more individual freedoms, was re-elected in the first round. The turnout had been 73%, but the hope it aroused then gave way to disillusionment. Faced with calls for a boycott relayed on social networks, Ali Khamenei has multiplied in recent months the calls to participate en masse in the ballot to elect a "powerful president".

60-year-old head of the Judicial Authority, Ebrahim Raïssi is a favorite archival, for lack of competitors to his measure after the disqualification of his main political opponents.

In 2017, against Hassan Rohani, he obtained 38% of the votes.

In May, the Council of Guardians of the Constitution authorized seven men to run, out of nearly 600 candidates.

But three of them then withdrew, two of whom called to vote for Ebrahim Raïssi.

Priority to the economic situation

The president has limited prerogatives in Iran, where most of the power is in the hands of the Supreme Leader. The record of Hassan Rouhani, who cannot run for a third four-year term this year, is marred by the failure of his policy of openness after the United States withdrew in 2018 from the agreement on Iran nuclear agreement with the major powers.

Discontent and distrust of the authorities is increasingly expressed in the face of the serious economic and social crisis caused by the reinstatement of US sanctions by the Trump administration. In December and January 2017-2018 and in November 2019, two waves of popular class protests were violently repressed in Iran. For the opposition in exile and human rights defenders, Ebrahim Raïssi is the embodiment of repression and his name associated with the mass executions of left-wing detainees in 1988, a tragedy in which he denies any participation.

The priority of the next president should be the recovery of the economy.

On this point, all the candidates agree that this must necessarily go through the lifting of the sanctions imposed under Trump, the subject of negotiations in Vienna to save the agreement by reintegrating the United States.

World

Fire "under control" but not extinguished at Tehran oil refinery

World

French accused of espionage in Iran: his sister "terrorized" at the idea that he is being tried

  • Iran

  • World

  • Ballot

  • President