By restricting the field of candidates for the upcoming presidential election in Iran, the conservative clerical establishment has not only tightened the hardliners’ grip on power but also narrowed the political spectrum. Consequently, conservatives will have no one to blame but themselves if the country does not prosper.

Out of nearly 600 potential candidates, the 12 conservatives on the appointed Guardian Council, which decides who can run for election, initially approved 40 but then shrunk the list to seven, five conservatives and two lesser known reformists. Among the disqualifications were veteran parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani, a conservative leaning towards the reformists, and ex-Vice President Eshaq Jhangiri.

In response to the disqualifications, Rouhani warned. “The heart of elections is competition. If you take that away [the process] becomes a corpse.” He said a low turnout would undermine the regime’s legitimacy. Following bans on hundreds of candidates for Iran’s 290-seat parliament in the February 2020 election, only 43 per cent of Iranians cast ballots. A poll taken on May 26th-27th showed that only 36 per cent of registered voters could be expected to vote, down from 43 per cent in a survey conducted 10 days earlier. Rouhani said he had sent a letter to supreme guide Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to ask him to lift the ban on candidates. Khamenei had rejected this appeal although he and other leading clerics have contended that the regime depends for legitimacy on the popular will.

The aim of the Council’s dramatic intervention is, apparently, to pave the way for the ultraconservative head of the judiciary, Ebrahim Raisi, to win the presidency and, ultimately, succeed Khamenei, a frail 83 years old. Raisi won 38 per cent of the vote in the 2017 presidential poll but was defeated by Rouhani who took 57 per cent, winning a second term in office by a larger margin than in 2013 when he secured 50.7 per cent.

During that campaign Rouhani was on a roll as the 2015 six-power agreement lifting sanctions on Iran in exchange for limitations on its nuclear programme was being implemented and Iran’s economy had a sudden burst of growth, giving the populace hope that their country’s isolation and deprivation would soon come to an end.

The latest effort to concentrate power in the conservative camp began with the 2016 parliamentary election when the battle between factions elicited a turnout of 62 per cent. Although the moderate/reformist bloc won a plurality of seats by taking 41 per cent of the vote in the 290-member majlis, the conservative coalition came in second with 28 per cent. This prompted conservatives to take further steps in order to secure domination of parliament and the unelected clerical bodies.

As with this year’s presidential election, the Guardian Council disqualified key reformist candidates in the 2020 parliamentary poll, including more than 80 sitting majlis members, prompting a boycott by reformists. Many voters did not cast ballots due to the boycott or fear of Covid, driving down turnout to 42.5 per cent. Some were alienated by their rulers due to mismanagement, corruption, the bite of US sanctions, and the killing of demonstrators in the November 2019 mas protests against unemployment, rising prices, and a faltering economy. The government’s slow response to Covid also had an impact. Conservatives won 230 seats, including all 30 in Tehran.

The abandonment of the agreement by Donald Trump in May 2018 promptly reversed the economic and political gains made by Iran under the nuclear deal. Iran abided by its terms for a year but then began to step away from compliance by enriching more uranium than the 300 kilogrammes allowed, purifying it to levels higher than the 3.7 per cent specified, and restricting inspections by the UN nuclear watchdog.

The narrowing of the presidential field has coincided with the latest round of talks in Vienna aimed at reviving the nuclear deal. Progress has been made but gaps remain between Tehran and Washington, particularly on which sanctions are meant to be removed. Iran demands the abolition of all sanctions imposed before the deal was signed as well as the “wall of sanctions” imposed by Trump after he dropped the deal.

The successor Biden administration – which had been expected to re-enter the deal as soon as it took office but delayed – agrees to lift sanctions that are associated with and are incompatible with the nuclear agreement but seeks to maintain sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile programme and regional interventions. US demands have, needlessly stalled its return to the deal.

President Joe Biden simply had to sign an executive order stating that the US has returned to compliance and lift sanctions. The administration could follow up its re-entry by reinstating sanctions on issues not related to the nuclear deal in order to exercise leverage on Tehran to negotiate on other issues.

Since negotiations over the US return to the deal have stretched into the Iranian presidential election campaign, Iranian expatriate and foreign experts suggest that Khamenei seeks to postpone agreement on US-re-entry and Iranian compliance until after a new president is installed in August and a government is formed. The winner, expected to be Ebrahim Raisi, Khamenei’s ally, would gain credit for the restoration of the deal and an end to sanctions on oil, financial affairs and commerce.

While hardline conservatives continue to oppose the deal or demand a total lifting of sanctions as their price for Tehran’s return to compliance, Khamenei is more realistic and is likely to accept a lifting of sanctions which are crippling Iran’s economy and impoverishing its people. He backed the nuclear deal when it was being negotiated between 2013-2015 and refused to pull out after Trump abandoned it and slapped devastating sanctions on Iran. Khamenei expected Trump might lose the 2020 US presidential election and that Washington would, eventually, return to the deal. As Khamenei is the ultimate decider of Iranian policy, the next president will have to toe his line.

If Raisi succeeds to the presidency and, eventually, to the post of supreme guide, he will clinch conservatives’ control on all levers of power in Tehran and finish off whatever remains of multi-party competition encouraged by the republic’s founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as a means of preventing one or other camp from achieving total domination. This could undermine the legitimacy of the regime which relies on popular credibility and support to retain power.