Shahram Akbarzadeh, Zahid Shabab Ahmed, Niamatullah Ibrahimi recently published the piece in British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. Read the article here.
Soft power, hard power dynamics: the case of Iran in Afghanistan
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Raisi Announced as President Elect
The Ministry of Interior announced the results of the Presidential election at noon. Out of 28.8 million votes, Ebrahim Raisi was declared the winner with about 17.9 million votes (62.1%), Mohsen Rezaei came second with about 3.4 million votes (11.8%), Abdol-Naser Hemmati received about 2.4 million votes (8.3%) and Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi received less than 990,000 votes (3.4%). The Ministry reported that over 4 million votes were invalid (14.4%) and the overall turnout was 48.8%, a drop of 24% from the 2017 election. The election participation rate was particularly low in Tehran, but higher in the provinces.
Other Candidates Concede
In the lead-up to the official announcement of Raisi’s victory, each of the other three candidates sent letters of congratulations to the President Elect and conceded defeat. First was Mohsen Rezaei at about 10am, Abdol-Naser Hemmati just before 11am, and finally Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi shortly after 11am. Roughly at the same time, President Hassan Rouhani made a “unofficial” statement to congratulate Raisi.
President Meets with President Elect
Shortly after 2pm, President Hassan Rouhani arrived at the offices of President Elect Ebrahim Raisi to congratulate him on his victory. During the meeting, Rouhani and Raisi discussed election turnout and its importance to the popular sovereignty of the Islamic Republic.
Polls Open on Election Day
Voting opened at 7am with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei casting the first vote at the Shrine of Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran. After voting, Khamenei spoke to the media, saying “today belongs to the people” and adding “the sooner you do this duty [vote], the better”. Polling stations, mostly located in religious buildings like mosques, hoseeiniyehs (ceremonial halls) and imamzadehs (shrines), were scheduled to open at 7am and close at midnight.
Delay in Polling Stations Opening
There was considerable voter frustration as the opening of polling stations was delayed in many locations throughout the country, with some taking several hours to open. Speculation online as to the cause wavered between rumours of a cyber-attack, a deliberate ploy to make the voting queues seem longer and general mismanagement. Later, the Head of IT at Election Headquarters explained that the delay was caused in the slowness in loading of the system for authenticating registered voters, which had been delivered to each polling station by the Ministry of Interior in the hour before polls opened for security reasons.
Voting Extended to 2am
The Election Headquarters at the Ministry of Interior announced in the evening that polling stations could stay open for an additional two hours, until 2am, due to the delay that occurred in polling stations opening on Friday morning. However, some polling stations appeared to still be open at 3am in some parts of the country.
Mehr-Alizadeh Heckled at Polling Station
Mohsen Mehr-Alizadeh, the Reformist candidate who resigned on Wednesday, arrived at the Jamaran Hosseiniyeh (where Ayatollah Khomeini once lived and taught) in the northern part of Tehran to vote at 11:30am. His visit was marred by heckling at the polling station, with several people reportedly shouting “marg bar zed-e velayat-e faqih [death to the opponents of the Guardianship of Jurists]” at the candidate. The Guardianship of the Jurists is the official system of government in Iran where clerics have juridical and political oversight over government, and the chant is popular among devoted supporters of the Supreme Leader. The chant indicates the hostility of hard-line conservatives who see Reformists as subversive.
Election Blackout Begins
A ban on campaigning for the Presidential election, alongside the local council and Assembly of Experts elections, began at 7am on Thursday. A spokesman for the national broadcaster, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), explained that, “campaigning for this election is prohibited 24 hours before the ballots open… from today until the end of the elections, the candidates and their supporters do not have the right to campaign and if any cases are observed, they will be dealt with according to the law”.
Kadkhodaei on Larijani and Ahmadinejad Disqualifications
In response to a question on the disqualification of Ali Larijani and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, spokesman of the Guardian Council, said “I do not know the reason for their rejection. We are not obliged to give reasons, but in last week three or four asked and the reasons were provided to them”. Kadkhodaei added that he hoped any issues regarding procedure of vetting candidates would be resolved through legislation by the Majles after the election, ignoring the fact that the Guardian Council changed the vetting criteria before the election against the wishes of the Majles.