Iran bears witness to a watershed swingback from a theocracy helmed by a moderate to an Islamic Republic under a hardcore conservative

The change of guard at the presidential level will likely entail a paradigm shift in the country’s dealings with Western nuclear powers, not the least in the context of the nuclear deal of 2015.

It was pretty obvious on Saturday afternoon, that the hardliner, Ebrahim Raisi, the conservative head of the judiciary, had an unassailable lead in the presidential election after 90 per cent of the votes had been counted. The question now uppermost in the minds of Iranians must be ~ can a new President make a difference? Conservatives are poised to be in control of an intrinsically theocratic nation, grappling with an economic crisis.

Three candidates in the fray conceded defeat to Raisi, a protégé of Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei who was widely seen as the frontrunner in Friday’s election that was marred by a low turnout and the disqualification of many candidates.

Ironically, the electoral turnout is the barometer of democracy in Iran.

The outcome was a virtually settled fact even before the first vote was cast.

Hardliner Mohsen Rezaei, a former commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, received over 3.3 million votes. He was followed by the former central bank chief, Abdolnaser Hemmati, the only moderate in the race, who got over 2.4 million votes, and conservative lawmaker Amir Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi who got over one million votes. In a statement, outgoing President Hassan Rouhani ~ a moderate by Iranian standards ~ congratulated the people and the supreme leader for an “epic and rare presence” in the elections, saying “your glorious and enemy-breaking participation led to the remorse and dejection of enemies and those who wish ill on this nation”.

Earlier, Rouhani in a remarkable expression of graciousness, congratulated “the people’s elected President”, without naming Raisi. The interior ministry refused to confirm reports that the number of void votes were more than those secured by Rezaei. In the immediate perspective, the country’s nuclear proliferation programme and the pact with the Western powers, not to forget the role of America ~ specifically Donald Trump’s rejection and now President Biden’s overtures ~ will be of uppermost importance to the new President.

Of considerable moment will be the role of President Biden.

Whereas Rouhani was a moderate in his conduct of domestic and foreign policies, his successor in Tehran’s presidential palace is a hardcore conservative, who will predictably play to Ayatollah Khamenei’s orthodox gallery and arguably the Islamic bloc generally.

At home, he will have to address the torpid economy, which means he can scarcely afford to offend the Western powers, least of all the United States of America. How well he walks that tightrope will determine Iran’s immediate future.