A battle of anti-western hardliners

Iran is holding snap elections on June 28 following the sudden death of former Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash. But the vote is neither free, nor likely to bring about any significant change in the country, analysts say.

The election will take place against the backdrop of a battered Iranian economy, widespread popular discontent and crackdowns on dissent. The county is also dealing with high inflation, heavy Western sanctions, mounting tensions with the U.S., ramped-up Iranian nuclear enrichment, and the Israel-Hamas war.

Iran’s ultra-conservative Guardian Council, which ultimately decides who is allowed on the ballot, has approved a list of six candidates to run for the presidency. Most are hardliners who hold staunch anti-Western positions, with one candidate representing the reformist camp. Women who had registered as candidates were all disqualified by the Council.

“Six out of 80 candidates made it past the Guardian Council’s vetting process. Of these six, five are genuine hardliners and one a token reformist,” Behnam ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told CNBC.

He described Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei⁠ as the country’s “only ‘voter’ of significance.”

He’s “looking for continuity, not change,” ben Taleblu said, adding that half of the approved candidates have been sanctioned by Western governments.

For some Iran watchers, the upcoming election presented an opportunity for the country’s government to “course-correct,” or work to rebuild its relationship with much of the Iranian populace and improve its image.

“That’s especially in the aftermath of the protests, the crackdowns, and just overall increased public dissatisfaction that’s almost become a hallmark of Raisi’s time in office. The leadership here had … an option to create at least a semblance of a competitive election,” said Nader Itayim, Mideast Gulf Editor at Argus Media.

But with Sunday’s announcement of the approved candidates, “those hopes were largely dashed,” he said. “In reality it’s still very much the hardliners’ to lose.”

Elected in the summer of 2021 amid the lowest voter turnout in a presidential election since the Islamic Republic was founded in 1979, Raisi was a hardline right-winger seen as a potential successor to the Islamic Republic’s aging supreme leader Khamenei.

The 63-year-old Raisi was a harsh critic of the West, cracking down heavily on the protest movement that swept the nation following the death of a young Kurdish…