Hardliners Set to Dominate Iran’s February Elections

The Obama administration hopes that the Iran nuclear deal reached last July can “strengthen the hand” of Iran’s more pragmatic revolutionaries – particularly President Hassan Rouhani and his allies. The first opportunity to test this proposition is February 27, when Iranians cast votes for parliament and the Assembly of Experts – the body that selects and advises the supreme leader. The possibility of the elections boosting the Rouhani camp rests on the answers to three key questions.

First is whether Rouhani’s camp can gain strength in the Assembly of Experts. Members of the Assembly serve eight years, and given the ill health of 76-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the body’s incoming cohort will likely elect his successor. A two-thirds majority is required to do so, and the radical revolutionaries currently control 58 of its 88 seats – in other words, two-thirds of the Assembly. Unless Rouhani’s camp can reduce the gap, Khamenei’s successor will be a radical as well.

Second is whether Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani can keep his role. Despite his radical credentials, Larijani has moved closer to Rouhani in recent months, shielding him from parliamentary obstructionism against his agenda of opening Iran’s economy to the world. Rouhani wants to achieve high growth and low inflation – and expand ties with the West – to boost Iran’s economy and thereby secure his reelection. Without Larijani as speaker, Rouhani’s economic team will face resistance from parliamentary opponents eager to make him a one-term president.

The third question is whether the Rouhani camp can increase its representation in parliament. After the regime crushed the reformist Green Movement in 2009, allies of its jailed leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi were wiped out of the political system. The only prominent reformist not imprisoned, former president Mohammad Khatami, is nonetheless barred from leaving the country and the media is prohibited from mentioning his name or publishing his photo. Last week, the Guardian Council – which vets parliamentary candidates – disqualified all but 30 of 3,000 reformist candidates who had applied. Their continued exclusion from office bodes ill for Rouhani.

If the Rouhani camp wins a parliamentary majority and increases its presence in the Assembly of Experts, it stands a chance to shape a relatively more pragmatic course for Iran – as long as that course remains within the constraints and directives handed down by the Supreme Leader. Their odds of doing so, however, are exceedingly slim. In the post-deal environment, as before the agreement, it will likely be the more radical regime elements who call the shots in the Islamic Republic.

Saeed Ghasseminejad is an Associate Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Emanuele Ottolenghi is a Senior Fellow. Follow them on Twitter @SGhasseminejad and @eottolenghi