Fifty million Iranian voters will head to the polls today. They will elect their next president – the man who will have to contend with Iran’s 25% youth unemployment rate, a shrinking economy and a 32% inflation rate. This new president will have a chance to move Iran’s policies away from the dangerous conservatism of the hardliners and, hopefully, begin to rehabilitate Iran’s image and economy. That is, if the country’s political elite will let them.
As I have argued in the past, the most promising candidate in the race, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, has been barred from standing by Iran’s Guardian Council. His candidacy, even if unsuccessful, would have brought a fresh attitude to Iran’s politics and provided a much-needed voice of reason and experience. A second Rafsanjani presidency could have been a boon to regional security, Iranian democracy and the resolution of the nuclear stalemate. It is certainly a great shame that the US did not stand up for democracy by supporting Rafsanjani.
There is one candidate left in the race who, should he prevail, would go a long way to restoring credibility to the Iranian regime. Hassan Rouhani, a Shi’a cleric and a high-ranking member of Iran’s political elite, has been endorsed by President Rafsanjani as well as the reformist former President Mohammad Khatami. Mohammad Reza Aref, a reformist candidate who dropped out earlier this week, has also thrown his weight behind Rouhani.
A surge of reformist support for Rouhani, particularly from members of the Green Movement, has catapulted him to what appears to be a commanding lead in the polls. With no good option left, reform-minded voters must either vote for Rouhani or sit out the election. That said, a number of polls from the last week show that anywhere from twenty to forty percent of voters remain undecided.
But Rouhani is no Rafsanjani or Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the 2009 presidential candidate who leads the Green Movement even as he remains under house arrest. Rouhani was Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council from 1989 until 2005, during which he was in part responsible for the development of Iran’s nuclear program and its sponsorship of terrorist groups abroad.
What has received the most attention, however, has been Rouhani’s tenure as Iran’s first chief nuclear negotiator with the West from 2003 to 2005, when he proved his reasonableness by suspending elements of Iran’s nuclear programs in order to secure talks with the West. While hardline candidates like firebrand conservative Saeed Jalili have attacked Rouhani’s record of compromise, moderates and reformists rightly view him as a talented diplomat, something Iran desperately needs if it is to reintegrate into the community of nations.
Crucially, none of Rouhani’s rivals for the presidency have demonstrated even the slightest desire to implement meaningful policy changes. None of them could end Iran’s status as a pariah state. Rouhani’s most serious competition, Mohammed Ghalibaf, is a Revolutionary Guards veteran, former Chief of Iranian Police Forces, and the current mayor of Tehran with a PhD in geopolitics. Until recently, he led in the polls by a wide margin. His supporters hail him as a pragmatist and talented manager, but a close look at his policies reveals him to be a hardliner and a conservative whose campaign slogans make frequent use of the word “Jihad.” The international community can ill-afford his election at such a pivotal time in the Middle East.
A Rouhani victory tomorrow would send Ayatollah Khamenei and the rest of Iran’s senior leadership a powerful message: Iranians demand meaningful foreign and domestic policy reform. But Iran’s undemocratic system of government ensures that real power lies in the hands of Khamenei and his coterie of mullahs and advisors. And even if Rouhani wins, America will need to continue its advocacy for democracy and a return to reason in the politics of the Middle East. This will certainly be one of the greatest challenges we face.
