Iran's test of public sentiment in first election after mass protests | DW News

Voters in Iran are electing a new parliament and a religious body called the Assembly of Experts. To Iran's political establishment, the elections are a test of public sentiment following a social uprising in 2022. The last parliamentary elections four years ago saw the smallest vote since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Iran is suffering an economic crisis and has been rocked by nationwide anti-government protests. And we can now turn to Ali Fathouliah Nejad. He's a German-Iranian political scientist who heads the Center for Middle East and Global Order think tank here in Berlin. He's also the author of the book Iran in an Emerging New World Order. Welcome back to DW, Ali. Now, there have been widespread calls to boycott this vote. How do Iranians at large feel about these elections? I think it is quite clear even for the regime itself that for these elections, there is not much enthusiasm quite on the contrary. We can expect the repetition of the last two major elections in Iran over the last few years for the parliament and the presidency, which already saw a historic low voter turnout. So this time around, we can also expect the same, even probably even lower, because the regime legitimacy has been further eroding, also in the wake of national uprisings that you mentioned earlier. So what we actually can expect, in fact, is that the regime is going to proclaim a fake voter turnout. Would that do much to legitimize them, though? Well, I don't believe so, because disillusionment is quite vast in Iran. It's quite widespread. There is also no illusion among Iranians that those elections are, you know, going to lead to some change. So everyone is well aware that it's quite farcical. So what we are going to see is, you know, basically the social base of the regime. We're going to go to the ballot boxes. And this social base of the regime has also been quite eroding. So basically, we're talking about 10 to 15 percent of the population who either ideologically or economically are somehow attached to the Islamic Republic of Iran. So basically, it's a contestation within a very small part of Iranian society. Those who benefit from the regime and are ideologically very committed, especially to the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic. You've mentioned the protests of 2022 and 2023. I want to know from you, how has this uprising, this movement played into the vote and the campaigning ahead of it? Well, it has definitely played into regime calculations that for months now, they've been very worried about the repetition of a historically low voter turnout. So over the last few months, we've seen quite a lot of agitation by regime officials and affiliated media urging Iranians to go to the ballot boxes because otherwise it would strengthen the so-called enemies of the Islamic Republic. But all those narratives are not working anymore. So what we can expect is, as I said before, a repetition of a historically low voter turnout and hence also the proclamation of a fake high voter turnout. Just three days ago, the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps affiliated media first talked about an expectation of 71 percent of Iranians going to the polls. So this is a stark contrast to probably only 10 to a maximum 20 percent of Iranians who may go to the ballot boxes. And repression of what you just identified in the eyes of the regime as enemies in the run up to these elections has been intense, hasn't it? Yeah, sure. I mean, what I referred to earlier is actually the foreign enemies of Iran who are going to be strengthened if Iranians don't go to the polling stations. But of course, as you may know, I'm talking about a long term revolutionary process and the culmination of which was in the fall 2022 revolutionary uprising against the regime. And I believe that this revolutionary process is continuing, although we may have this kind of superficial reading that Iran is in a state of stability. But actually, the motors of revolutionary frustration are still there, socioeconomic and political. And there is a wide gulf and probably irreversible gulf between state and society, a regime that has no policy answers to the basic needs of Iranians. And those and where also elections cannot, you know, cannot lead to any kind of change. Yeah, so this is the kind of reality that many Iranians are now facing. Very complicated one. Ali Fataleh and Nejad, thank you so much for breaking it down for us. Thank you. And for more on this, let's bring in Seema Sabet. She is a journalist with a particular focus on Iran. She is a former anchor for Iran International TV, and she joins us from London. Welcome to the program. Is there any way that this vote can be legitimate in the eyes of Iranians, especially considering the likely low turnout? Let me start with the last part of the report that you just showed. It was saying that during the last 12 months of Mahsa Amini's death, which still makes me really emotional when I remember all those days. Mahsa Amini's mother had a story on Instagram. The story said if the vote could change anything, they wouldn't have let you to vote. Videos that are coming from Iran since morning, when the voting started, shows that most of the polling stations are empty. Many people didn't vote. There has been a massive boycott on this election, mainly because everyone is totally disappointed with the government. There is no hope with the government to change or reform, and there is a huge number of people who they think that the Islamic Republic has to go. There is no way that this government is going to change its behavior and honor somehow people's will to freedom or change of political circumstances that they are living in. There was a poll yesterday taken by the government, which assessed that almost about 15% of people in Tehran are going to turn at the polling stations and they're going to vote. I assume that 15% is going to be people who they are supporters of the Islamic Republic. There was another poll by Statist, which found out that the people who they are going to vote mainly belong to the people with the higher education, rather than normally, I mean, people who didn't vote, they belong to people with less education. This signifies that the economic situation of the country and the massive poverty that people are living in brought a huge gap between the society and also the government. Based on the World Bank statistic, which came in December 23, about two months ago, almost 68% of Iranians are going to live in poverty or they are already in poverty. Right. So, I mean, you've highlighted there the economic situation, also, you know, the general dissatisfaction with the leadership in the country. How about also the regional context? Because, you know, Iran has been seen to wield influence through its proxies in the war in Gaza and the wider region, including in the Red Sea. What do Iranians make of that? Well, Iranians have been saying it loud and clear a long time ago that the West has to pay attention to what the Islamic Republic does. It's not an internal issue. The Islamic Republic suppresses people inside. It gets massively suppressed. But at the same time, in the world arena, you see that, I mean, the proxies of the Islamic Republic are everywhere in the Middle East and moves its muscles when they desire. So, Islamic Republic plays a significant role in terms of bringing instability and tensions in the region, which seems that this is actually the reason that the West is reluctant in terms of doing anything about it. Most of the focus has always been given to Iran's nuclear program, which is very scary and also very important in terms of being addressed issue. But at the same time, it's important to pay attention to the extent of its proxies in the region, in Iraq, in Lebanon, having funded Hamas for very long. And now we can see its influence on Houthis in the Red Sea, which interrupted the whole international trade. So before it comes into that level of, let's say, alarming point of disrupting anything, the West has to come into a policy which addresses that exactly. Thank you so much for that context. Journalist Seema Zabet joining us from London. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks very much.