Iran’s “Innovations” for the Elections on March 1
by Hassan Setayesh — 26February2024
For voting in the Iranian elections in March, there is no longer a need to present a birth certificate and have it stamped. Iranians can now vote with any any of the following documents: passport, national ID card, birth certificate, driving license, or military service completion card. The ballots for the Islamic Consultative Assembly and the Assembly of Experts for Leadership have also been combined. So why has the government made the election process so non-transparent and unhealthy?
The new initiatives that the Islamic Republic has implemented and those it has failed to implement for the conduct of this year’s elections, together, reveal a stark reality: the government no longer gives any importance to electoral integrity and will do anything to artificially increase the participation rate while leaving no room for risk in the transition period.
Why has the government changed the election conduct?
Falsifying the participation rate in elections is one of the strategic goals of the Islamic Republic. For this reason, boycotting elections has been criminalized. Asghar Jahangir, the Deputy for Social Affairs and Crime Prevention of the Judiciary, had announced on February 18, about arrests and suppression for this reason:
“Based on monitoring that is done very precisely 24/7, all the networks that are accessible to us are monitored in this regard, and in this context, 200 networks that were tarnishing the elections or weakening them or in some way, trying to reduce participation or discredit the elections or defame individuals, were invited and warned, and legal actions were taken against 38 of those who had been warned, and 8 of these media and virtual networks were also blocked in this connection, and cases were filed against 3 political activists who had acted in this matter.”
Three political prisoners who previously supported reformists and boycotting elections have been punished by being transferred to different wards or placed in solitary confinement including Saeed Madani, a sociologist; Hossein Razzaq, a political activist; and Mostafa Tajzadeh, the Deputy Minister of Interior during Mohammad Khatami’s presidency.
But the drop in participation rate is not the government’s only worry. It was widely anticipated by everyone, including government officials, that the participation in this year’s parliamentary elections would be significantly low as a result of the months-long uprising following Jina Mahsa Amini’s death, amid an economic and livelihood crisis, and the growing movement of labor, employee, and retiree demands. The anticipated low turnout was expected to surpass the lack of participation seen in the presidential election that elected Ebrahim Raisi, as well as in the previous parliamentary elections that resulted in the “most revolutionary” parliament of the era, led by Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
However, reducing the circle of insiders within the government through those two electoral shows did not lead to unity; instead, it revealed divisions among conservatives, neo-conservatives, justice seekers, and others. These rifts are now evident in the labyrinth of lists from the faction known as conservatives for the parliamentary elections.
On the other hand, following the previous two elections, the government continues to seek the arrangement of pieces and the marshaling of forces for the leadership transition period. The decision of who will be the next leader of the Islamic Republic will not be left to others by Ali Khamenei, a figure who has transformed the Leader’s house into the institution of leadership. The conflict of interests between various conservative and moderate groups must also be managed in this context.
Moreover, if this Assembly of Experts for Leadership, which traditionally faces lower participation and public indifference in its elections, wants to determine the next leader, it needs the formal authority that comes from the percentage of ceremonial votes; not to convince the people of its choice, but more to make the selection acceptable to different factions in power in the lobbying game. In these difficult conditions of intensified conflict of interests and lack of legitimacy for the government, every card is important for the power play.
According to official statistics, 61,172,298 individuals are eligible to participate in this election round, including 30,945,133 men and 30,227,165 women. 3.5 million people can participate in the elections for the first time.
According to a government poll conducted by the Student Opinion Polling Center (ISPA), only 27.9% are certain and 7.4% are very likely to participate in the upcoming elections.
This Year’s “Innovations”
Government and security news agencies like “Tasnim” call the changes in the execution of this year’s elections “innovations” — but a word that carries a positive connotation cannot cover the evident volume of vote engineering.
The first “innovation” of the government was pre-registration and extending the duration of “qualifications” assessment. In other words, an initial screening phase occurred followed by the main screening which resulted in the disqualification or rejection of many candidates — both for the Islamic Consultative Assembly and the Assembly of Experts on Leadership.
The disqualifications of Hassan Rouhani and Mostafa Pourmohammadi, senior security figures, in the Experts, to the minor candidates of this and that spectrum in the Assembly, indicate that the maneuverings that clearly started four years ago for Khamenei’s transition period are continuing.
The Experts election is held in 31 provinces, with the newspaper “Iran” explaining that there will be no competition in 18 provinces.
An innovation removed from this year’s elections was the electronic voting in Tehran — something that could have made tampering with the votes harder than the current method. Now, electronic elections are limited to the electoral districts of Rasht and Khomam, Qom, Malayer, and Abadan.
Another innovation was the consolidation of the ballot papers for both the Islamic Consultative Assembly and the Assembly of Experts elections, as Tasnim explains:
“Among the innovations in this round, one is the unification of the ballot slips; in such a way that voters will receive a ballot slip, part of which lists the candidates for the Experts and another part, the candidates for the Islamic Consultative Assembly, and they will separate both sections and drop them in two separate boxes.”
This action increases the participation rate in the always unpopular Experts elections.
Another noteworthy innovation relates to making the voting process easier, more opaque, and less healthy. According to officials, voters can participate in the elections by presenting one of the five documents: a passport, national ID card, birth certificate, driving license, or military service completion card, and it is not necessary for their birth certificate to be stamped.
Previously, Mohammad Hossein Moqimi, the Deputy Minister of Interior of the former government, had stated that he does not remember any elections being held without the inspection of birth certificates by the officials.
All these “innovations” occur in the context of Ali Khamenei’s statements, who has expressed a desire for as high a participation rate as possible: a participation that currently no one expects to increase except in a superficial manner, but has now become a presupposition in the speeches of security officials; like the speech by Hossein Salami, the Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who said on Friday, February 23:
“On Friday, the 1st of March, we have another conclusive argument with the enemy, and just like the 22nd of Bahman rally (Anniversary of Islamic Revolution), the presence of the nation at the ballot boxes will deliver another strong punch to the mouth of the enemy.”
