French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to dissolve parliament and call early elections, with voting to begin next Sunday, will divert the world’s attention from another potential political earthquake. On Friday, Iranian voters will fill the vacancy left by the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash last month.
Even without the French vote, it would be tempting to downplay the significance of the Iranian elections. After all, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Ali Khamenei, is a bitter opponent of the West, and Raisi, his loyal follower, has won decisively in 2021. So won’t Khamenei simply manipulate the upcoming vote in a way that will ensure election victory? another extreme hardliner?
Not so fast. Iranian politics took a decisive turn in the three years between Raisi’s rise and fall. Under Iran’s constitution, candidates must be approved by the Guardian Council, which is dominated by the clerical elite, before they can run. In 2021, Raisi owed his victory to the Council’s refusal to grant a place on the ballot to a strong opponent of Khamenei’s militant anti-Western policies.
