Quadrilateral Election
The Ministry of Interior announced the names of 6 final candidates whose qualifications have been approved for the election of the ninth President of Iran.
It is commendable that the Ministry of Interior did not delegate this role like other electoral matters, and the mechanism for determining qualifications, which does not allow candidates to defend themselves against potential reports against them, is naturally open to criticism.
It is truly unclear on what basis they concluded that Ali Larijani, with a 12-year history as Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly over three consecutive terms and connections to several clerical families, being the son of Ayatollah Mirza Hashem Amoli and the son-in-law of the martyred professor Morteza Motahhari, is not qualified while others are. This question can be extended to other disqualified candidates, but it is more pertinent in his case.
Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the model of 2024 is not like 2021.
Because in the 2021 model, the main figure was predetermined, and any vote-gathering candidate was eliminated, and the one who remained could not genuinely compete with the main individual.
Now, however, this is not the case, and it is not an exaggeration to say that a quadrilateral election has been outlined, and the reformists have a direct candidate, not a proxy or supportive one from outside the reformist front like in 2013 and 2017. As mentioned in the Friday statement, Masoud Pezeshkian was named as one of the three main candidates. Thus, the reformists are present in the elections with a primary and top-tier candidate, not a proxy or second-tier one, or they can be.
The second side is naturally the new principlism, symbolized by Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has entered the arena for the fourth time, and everyone wants to know whether Ghalibaf in 2024 will resemble that of 2005 when he came as a technocrat, or 2013 when he aligned closer to principlism, or 2017 when he wanted to appear like Ahmadinejad.
Now we must see which Ghalibaf we will face in 2024 and whether he intends to emulate the late president, while some candidates with this potential have been eliminated, even though the government spectrum and radical principlism have representatives and are unwilling for him to be introduced as the heir.
The third side is radical principlism or the government spectrum, which, as mentioned, has representatives, namely three individuals: Saeed Jalili, who, although not officially a member of the government, arranged the key figures of the current outgoing government and turned the national broadcasting organization into an exclusive and promotional platform for the government through his brother. Besides him, Alireza Zakani and Amir Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi can be mentioned.
The fourth side is traditional right with the symbol of the Secretary-General of the Combatant Clergy Association. In the absence of Mostafa Pourmohammadi, this notion was forming that unlike the previous 11 rounds, no cleric is present in this election, which was not considered a positive point for the clergy.
If Ali Larijani had also been approved, the quadrilateral would have turned into a pentagon, and currently, the moderate or centrist principlism side is absent. It is not unlikely that Mr. Pourmohammadi would attempt not to fully stop at the traditional right and also venture into moderate principlism.
Even if Eshaq Jahangiri had been approved, it was not unlikely that the final choice of the reformist front would still be Masoud Pezeshkian, because Zakani cannot target him like Hemmati, whereas if Jahangiri were present, it was not unlikely that he would want to play the same role again.
With the outlining of the early 2024 quadrilateral election, it can be said that the 2021 model has not been repeated. The reason could be that an individual with the characteristics of the late president was not found for the principlists to reach a consensus on, or the overall policy was to end the majority’s estrangement with the ballot box, an event that occurred in the first and second rounds of the parliamentary elections in February 2023 and May 2024, which did not bring pride and was not termed a ‘heroic epic’ by anyone other than the current Minister of Interior, who soon realized that 8% participation is not an epic.
Another reason could be the preemptive counter to Donald Trump’s return to the White House or a serious effort to reform certain procedures that, as evidenced over these three years, did not bring public benefit and only placed some from the lowest managerial ranks at the top through opportunistic leaps.
In a non-competitive space without the existing quadrilateral and with the repetition of the 2021 model, the social capital after the funeral ceremony would also be at risk, and the preference for the quadrilateral and a model similar to 2013 over 2021 might have been for this reason.
Another feature of the 2024 quadrilateral election is that although the likelihood of it turning into a bipolar competition is high, it is unlikely that 5 other candidates will align under one pole against one person, even though some are already depicting the combination as one against five, which benefits the reformist candidate. However, none of this negates the role of the gray layers, which would enter the field with motivations beyond political, social, economic, administrative, lifestyle, and cultural divisions, and their absence led to a significant decrease in participation in the three elections of 2019, 2021, and 2023.