The Iranian elections and the surprises

Written by Nasser Kandil,

In every election season Iran gives a message and a moral, everything has been arranged quietly and carefully in order to fix the lesson and the message. The Islamic Republic in Iran is a unique example of a regime that is able to keep its stability, its constants, and the sources of its power, but at the same time it can produce a flexible formula to the authority in which the public opinion plays a crucial role in its concerns, interests, and the distribution among its blocs. The Iranian democracy emerges to meet the aspirations of the supreme interests of the country to the same extent of resorting to the ballot boxes, as an expression of the public and elitist interaction and a framework for measuring the balances and the roles of the component movements of the regime and those which compete on its leadership.

The Supreme Leader occupies the role of the compass which directs the regime, its interventions, and delusions which are not far from determining the message needed by Iran in every election season. Along with the President Mohammed Khatamei, the President Ahmadinejad, and the President Hassan Rouhani it has a meaning and a role, it is directed to the enemy or the friendly abroad that surpasses the limits of the class which wins or the movement which leads the country in its internal policies. The supreme leadership of the country is entrusted to the Supreme Leader to protect the constants and to determine the active factors of the defense and the foreign policies, as well as the pivotal mission of building the capacity which was and still the first Iranian issue, from the time of the nuclear capability to the time of the missile capability, along with building the regional role.

The Revolutionary Guard forms the source of password which plays an organized and a crucial role in the elections when the Supreme Leader has a preference of a hint or a statement. The Guard which forms the shield of Iran is neither a local political background nor a movement which competes to rule even if its leaders wish in their feelings and choices that the winning be in favor of the one whom they find closer to the necessities of the mission for which the Guard was found to protect, they form the party of the Supreme Leader that does not deviate from the supreme interest in favor of its own account, they adjust their behavior according to what ensure the achievement of what they want in every event and occasion. As it was clear in the inaugural speech of the President Khatami where the regime needed time to be able to overcome the difficult obstacles in the issue of building the nuclear capacity, and as it was required for challenge and going on in the choice of construction in the era of the President Ahmadinejad, it was required for negotiation and for showing the professionalism of diplomacy to assert the rights and to reap the fruits of steadfastness as well as to profit diplomatically, politically, and economically when the opportunity arises.

This time, the cultural chaos which prevails in the world seems as the surrealistic scene of the collapsing democracy in its values which prevails on the western countries, as the example of Donald Trump who depends on non-regulation, and the example of Macron who is as a robot that is made by the machinery of regulation, so Iran wanted to make the results of its elections ambiguous and to show an example of democracy where the winning depends on points, so they bore a lot of surprises. There were estimations and withdrawals; the suspense was till the last day and even till the last hour, where the Supreme Leader emerged to say that the winner is the regime and the people not the name of the candidate who will win the presidency.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,