Friday’s vote for Iran’s parliament and the Assembly of Experts, the body that will pick the next supreme leader, have assumed an importance well beyond the perennial battles between hardliners entrenched in power and reformists seeking to unseat them.
These are the first elections since Tehran reached an accord with major powers to curb its nuclear programme, leading to the removal of most of the punitive international sanctions that have strangled the economy over the past decade.
The breakthrough took place under pragmatic President Hassan Rouhani, who sees it as a springboard for Iran to reintegrate into the international community and return to world markets. But hardline opponents are determined to prevent it leading to any liberalisation of the Islamic system through the ballot box.
These electoral contests are seen by some analysts as a make-or-break moment that could shape the future for the next generation, in a country where nearly 60% of the 80m population is under 30.
The outcome could be skewed by the disqualification of many pro-reform candidates by an unelected clerical Guardian Council that reports directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The stakes are high for all factions, since the outcome may well determine whether Rouhani has a mandate to push ahead with long-promised political, social and economic reforms, as well as influencing his chances of re-election in 2017.
In the final days of campaigning, the fight turned vicious.
Reflecting an abiding mistrust in Rouhani’s overtures to the West, Khamenei accused the West of plotting to influence the vote and said he was sure Iranians would vote in favour of keeping Iran’s anti-Western stance. Rouhani, whose allies have come under growing pressure in the election campaign from hardliners who accuse them of links to Western powers, has denied such accusations, calling them an insult to the intelligence of Iranians.
Under the thumb
The preliminaries to both contests underlined that elected politicians are ultimately under the thumb of clerics, Islamic jurists and their opaque institutions, with the supreme leader at their apex.
Even if his hardline allies were to lose the parliamentary race to their moderate rivals, Khamenei will continue to hold ultimate authority, while presidents and lawmakers come and go.
Hardliners alarmed
For ordinary Iranians, the prospect of this kind of investment holds out the promise of a return to economic growth, better living standards and more jobs in the long run.
An opening to the world of this magnitude - and Rouhani’s popularity - have alarmed hardline allies of Khamenei, who fear losing control of the pace of change, as well as inroads into the lucrative economic interests they built up under sanctions.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, for example, is not just Iran’s praetorian guard but a corporate empire, with vast holdings in from banking to construction and manufacturing.
The Guards are still under sanctions for alleged support for terrorism. All this has exacerbated political infighting within Iran’s complex power structures.
The Guardian Council barred thousands of moderates from standing, including Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
The younger Khomeini, a 43-year-old mid-ranking cleric, had sought to enter the Assembly of Experts as a standard-bearer for moderates with credibility among conservatives. He was told he lacked the necessary religious credentials.
Out of the estimated 801 Islamic clerics who put themselves forward for the 88-member Assembly of Experts, only 166 were approved as candidates. Women were not allowed to stand for the assembly, which will eventually choose a successor to Khamenei.
Significant contest
Until now, the contest for this seat of clerical power was an unremarkable event, but not this time. Because of Khamenei’s health and age of 76, the new assembly members who serve an 8-year term are likely to choose his successor. The next leader could well be among those elected this week.
The reformists’ top candidate is former president Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, although he is now 81. He is among the founders of the Islamic Republic and was its president from 1989-1997. Nearly always at the centre of Iran’s intricate webs of power, he is famous for his pragmatism and political acumen.
In backing such a centrist arch-fixer, the reformists hope that in alliance with moderate conservatives they will be able to block the three main ultra-conservative leaders - Ahmad Jannati, Mohammad Yazdi and Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi - from emerging as Khamenei’s successor.
Rafsanjani is also head of the Expediency Council, a body which mediates between the elected parliament and the appointed Guardian Council. But his power has waned in recent years, highlighted by the jailing of two of his children. He fell out with Khamenei after backing the opposition Green Movement in the disputed 2009 presidential vote and is now allied with the reformists.
This is hardly surprising given that the supreme leader has substantial influence, or constitutional authority, over the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government as well as the military and media.
Under Iran’s constitution, a transitional “Leadership Council” is permitted until a supreme leader is selected by the assembly. But analysts said Rafsanjani advocated a permanent council, fiercely rejected by Khamenei’s hardline allies.
Despite the sweeping disqualifications, reformists are competing fiercely, and trying to maximise their results by forming a coalition with pragmatists and offering a joint list of their favourite candidates in the capital and other cities.
The conservatives are taking no chances either. They are organising buses to transport voters from remote villages and cities to Tehran, providing them with accommodation and food to cast their ballot for their candidates.