Determining Factor in Iran’s Presidential Election: Voter Turnout

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wants it both ways: high voter turnout in the June 28 presidential election and victory for former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, who appears to be his preferred candidate. These two objectives, however, are mutually exclusive, as high voter turnout has historically benefitted candidates disliked by Khamenei, such as former Presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani.

• June 2: Centrist Khabar Online, citing a Parliamentary Research Center poll, reported that voter turnout is likely to be 53%.
• June 10: Iranian Students Polling Agency released the results of its latest poll:
  • 4% of respondents answered yes to the question “I will certainly vote,” 7.3% responded “I will most likely vote,” 14.9% answered “undecided,” 4.8% responded “I will most likely not vote,” and 28.7% answered “I will under no circumstances vote.”
  • 39% of respondents indicated that they felt the general circumstances in Iran will improve with a new president, while 16.2% indicated that they expect a deterioration of the general circumstances. Additionally, 22% indicated they are not expecting anything to change with a new president in power, while another 22% indicated they don’t know whether there will be any change.
• June 12: Mohsen Hashemi Rafsanjani, son of the late President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, said, as quoted by reformist Shargh Daily: “If voter turnout is below 40%, someone like Jalili wins. If it’s around 50%,” Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Qalibaf “may perhaps win in the first round of the election, but should the turnout reach 60%, Masoud Pezeshkian has a better chance.”
• June 15: Khamenei’s official website released the transcript of an address he gave to elite students: “Elections are important, and first and foremost, voter turnout is of great importance. You should do everything you can, be it among fellow students, at work, in the family, and the like, to increase voter turnout … Then, assess who among the candidates is closer to the ideals of the revolution.”
• June 16: In “A People Repulsed by Politics,” a frontpage column in Kargozaran Daily, the mouthpiece of the technocratic Kargozaran Party, Seyyed Mostafa Hashemitaba, a member of the party, wrote: “The issue of voter turnout in elections became the central question in the elections in 2021 … There was a problem called extremely low voter turnout and a public that under no circumstances was willing to cast its vote. This time around, the outcome may differ from the previous two elections, and more people may vote in the June 28 election, perhaps slightly more than the last parliamentary elections, but not much higher. The reformists are the ones capable of mobilizing the extra voters … But voter turnout will not exceed 50% unless something happens to attract the voters. People don’t believe any of the candidates are capable of doing anything special. Therefore, they reason: ‘Let anyone take over, it has nothing to do with us. What difference does it make? In practice, the politicians can’t do anything.’ These people are repulsed by politics, as if the society is no longer on friendly terms with politics.”

The views represented herein are the author's or speaker's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of AGSI, its staff, or its board of directors.