In recent years, Iran has been swept by protests and waning government legitimacy. In September 2022, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini died in the custody of Iran’s morality police, who had arrested her for allegedly violating the country’s mandatory hijab policy. The events provoked months of Gen Z-led civic outrage that briefly challenged—but ultimately emboldened—Tehran’s clerical regime under the leadership of President Ebrahim Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The ultraconservative Raisi was elected in 2021 in a process that FP’s Ravi Agrawal called “unfree, unfair, and preordained.” Iran’s Guardian Council, a religious constitutional body that approves all candidates for office, had eliminated any viable challenges to Raisi—who was favored by Khamenei to succeed more moderate then-President Hassan Rouhani. In an interview with Agrawal, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Karim Sadjadpour referred to Raisi as an “obsequious protege” of and a “heat seeking-missile for Khamenei’s ass.”
Elections to Watch in 2024: This story is part of a package on 15 key elections this year (besides the United States). Read the full analysis here.
Raisi’s presidency has been tumultuous. In addition to the Mahsa Amini protests, Iranians are upset about the state of the country’s economy. As of 2022, 30 percent of Iranian households were living below the poverty line amid rampant inflation and heavy U.S. sanctions. Though Raisi mended ties with longtime foe Saudi Arabia, tensions with adversaries Israel and the United States have soared—particularly amid the latter’s ongoing war with Hamas, a militant group that receives funding from Tehran.
This year, Khamenei is seeking to solidify his control over Iran’s institutions in legislative elections that will see Iranians elect all 290 seats in the Majlis, the country’s representative parliament, and all 88 members of the Assembly of Experts, which appoints the supreme leader.
Most observers agree that the Majlis has little policymaking authority and serves instead to rubber-stamp decisions made by Raisi and Khamenei. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy cited a July 2023 poll by state media that 68 percent of Iranians are dissatisfied with the parliament. Majlis members serve four-year terms; voter turnout during the last Majlis election in 2020—held mostly before the onset of the pandemic—was a little more than 42 percent. The Majlis is dominated by two conservative factions: Raisi’s hard-line ideological Steadfastness Front and a more mainstream, pragmatic group led by Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf.
The Assembly of Experts, which meets just twice per calendar year, could have more sway over the future of Iranian politics. That’s because Khamenei is 84 years old. If he were to die over the next eight years—the length of a term in the assembly—it would be charged with choosing his successor. Khamenei seems to be angling for his son Mojtaba Khamenei to take over, but Rouhani is also considered to be a potential contender. Rouhani appears to be reading a candidacy for the assembly, which he was a member of before becoming president in 2013.
During the last assembly election in 2016, the Guardian Council disqualified 80 percent of candidates to the Assembly of Experts. All of the council’s current members are men, and almost all are over the age of 50. Only one is not a cleric.
The rejection rate for Majlis contenders is lower: During a one-week preregistration period in August 2023, Iranian authorities reported receiving a record 49,000 candidate applications. By Nov. 18, 2023, regular-phase registrations numbered almost 25,000, according to Voice of America, with a rejection rate of about 28 percent.
Regardless of how many candidates make the ballot for both the Majlis and Assembly of Experts, the more consequential question is whether Iran’s reformists will boycott the vote. For Raisi and Khamenei, low turnout could be a double-edged sword. A reformist boycott would almost guarantee their hard-line camp a victory. But by laying bare their government’s waning public legitimacy, it would also make them look weaker than ever.