The mass disqualification of the presidential candidates in Iran has become a very serious event for the regime’s officials. Many of them fear the consequences of such an act by the Guardian Council, which is controlled and directed by the regime’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, and warn about the people’s frustration, despair, and protests.

This time Khamenei decided to sort out the so-called reformist candidates and even people who were accused not to be loyal enough to the supreme leader, which were not even in the reformist wing, showing the critical and fragile situation of the regime, that cannot tolerate anyone anymore, except people like the mass murderer Ebrahim Raisi.

A regime cleric Mohammad Javad Hojjati Kermani, in response to the repression and elimination of the candidates by the Guardian Council, said in a message: “This was a coup de grace to the coffin of the republic of the system. The announcement of mostly one-color candidates for the presidency of 2021 is unbelievable.”

Wwarning about the people’s reaction, he said: “The discouragement and indifference of the whole people, as well as the large number of experts and observers, is very dangerous and is becoming more dangerous every day.”

This person in July 2019 declared the regime’s situation in one sentence and said: “Cancer has taken over the system; from the cultural and moral collapse to the spread of hypocrisy.”

The regime’s Assembly of Teachers and Researchers of Qom Seminary about this situation in a statement on May 27 said:

“The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran introduces the ruling system of Iran after the revolution as a system that emerged from the will of the people, a system whose affairs and mechanisms proceed with the participation of the people in decision-making. Restricting the vote of the people and the republic of the system began when the Guardian Council resorted to approving oversight and made it its dominant practice.

“The indifference of the people has reached the point where in the last few days the spokesman of the Guardian Council has separated the legitimacy of the system from the participation of the people in the elections and has openly stated that the low participation of the people does not affect the legitimacy of the system. The words of the spokesman of the Guardian Council show that the Guardian Council does not recognize the republic and the votes of the people and puts its tastes and desires before the votes of the people.

“Why should the fate of this large country be tied to the tastes of a few people? Given the widespread disqualification of the candidates for the 2021 presidential election, everyone knows that this sham election will be unpopular, with no competition and with minimal participation, and it is the responsibility of the Guardian Council which has lost its legal legitimacy by trying to weaken the republic of the system.”

The state-run ILNA news agency quoting Parvaneh Salahshouri, one of the so-called reformists, on May 27 wrote: “Apparently, people think that whoever becomes president is not important for them, and all presidents have to follow certain orders, so their presence is meaningless.”

Fearing the people’s carelessness which can lead to protests, she added: “When a sense of meaninglessness is formed among the people, they withdraw from participating in the elections, and this withdrawal will gradually lead to social events, which we are more or less witnessing in society.” (ILNA, May 27, 2021)

Even the regime’s former president Mohammad Khatami, who is famous to be one of the heads of the so-called reformist faction but who as president repressed student protests in 1999, frustrated about this event, playing the role of someone who cares about the people, said:

“Real elections are a symbol of systems that have embraced democracy and, in turn, strengthen the golden principle of ‘the people’s right to self-determination.’

“What has happened these days during the introduction of the presidential candidates is the result of an approach, perception and action that has already narrowed the field for the people’s choice, and this time it has appeared more openly and unequivocally.”

Finally warning the regime about the consequences of such a decision, he added: “The republic of the system, which is based on the free vote of the nation and has become less and is fading, and is under more serious threat, and no current, with any affiliation and approach, can and should not be indifferent to this great danger.” (Information base of the head of the reform government, May 27, 2021)

Finally, the excluded candidate Ali Larijani about his exclusion and the dangers facing the entire regime after this event, said the regime will be ripped apart: “We must take internal harmony seriously, else we must rely to an external force. Good governance is impossible without a good economy. People should have a predictable life. The government must speak clearly to the people.” (State-run website Khabar Online, May 27, 2021)

Iran’s presidential election is scheduled to take place on June 18. The final list of candidates is expected this Thursday, but for weeks, Iranian officials have been warning that the greatest challenge facing any and all candidates may be public antipathy to the electoral process. In April, the state media outlet Hamdeli published an article that said the regime “should worry about the social consequences” of low voter turnout, while another state-run daily newspaper, Jahan-e Sanat, observed that “significant voter turnout is unlikely” in the face of authorities’ persistent disregard for the grievances driving earlier electoral boycotts and mass protests.

The latter article specifically highlighted the continuity between at least two such protests – one in January 2018 and another in November 2019 – and an electoral boycott that activist groups have been promoting in advance of the presidential election. But for those who have been paying close attention to Iranian affairs in recent years, this continuity was already obvious. Among the defining features of the January 2018 uprising were slogans that explicitly rejected both factions of mainstream Iranian politics. These slogans were later adopted by the November 2019 uprising, which spanned nearly 200 cities and towns, and the message was put into practice three months later when the Islamic Republic held its latest parliamentary elections.

For weeks beforehand, authorities urged all citizens to participate in the elections, often emphasizing that even if they found no candidates worth supporting, they should still submit ballots in order to affirm their support for the ruling system. Yet this was the very thing that thousands upon thousands of Iranians had rejected with two successive uprisings and a range of other, smaller-scale protests. Recurring chants like “death to the dictator” conveyed enthusiasm for the prospect of regime change, and by telling both “hardliners” and “reformists” that “the game is over,” protesters made it clear that they would no longer be tricked into allowing two indistinguishable factions to trade control over key institutions while continually subjecting the Iranian people to the same destructive policies and endemic corruption.

Although Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei proclaimed that participation in the February 2020 election was both a patriotic and a religious duty for all Iranians, the actual turnout in that election proved to be the lowest in the 40-year history of the Islamic Republic. This fact was even acknowledged by Tehran’s own statistics, despite the regime’s longstanding history of inflating voter participation numbers in order to create a veneer of greater legitimacy for itself. Its inability to do so last year was a true testament to the staying power of the uprisings’ political message, as well as the undeniable vulnerability that the regime had acquired in their wake.

Khamenei begrudgingly revealed that vulnerability himself at the height of the first uprising. In absence of any other credible explanation for the rapid spread and stark anti-government message of the January 2018 protests, the Supreme Leader stated publicly that the nationwide activist movement had been fueled by the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran. Although that group has long been recognized in Western policy circles as the leading voice for democracy in the Islamic Republic, the Iranian regime has always denied its popularity and its organizational strength, referring to it as a “cult” and a “grouplet” and feigning a lack of concern for the challenge that it presents to the theocratic system.

That bravado vanished in the face of the first uprising, and has never returned. Quite to the contrary, Tehran’s tactic acknowledgment of vulnerability has been reinforced with each successive development, as evidenced by recurring warnings from government officials and state media outlets regarding the prospect of further PMOI-led uprisings. These were no doubt the primary “social consequences” of low voter turnout that Hamdeli had in mind last month. And the threat of renewed unrest has only become more apparent in the intervening month.

The electoral boycott movement has specifically begun to overlap with various protests happening throughout the Islamic Republic, each calling attention to a different social or economic crisis. Impoverished pensioners, for instance, have been staging interconnected protests in more and more Iranian cities since early this year, and early this month they began chanting slogans like, “We have seen no justice; we will no longer vote.” The same or similar slogans have been taken up by other activist groups, while “Resistance Units” affiliated with the PMOI have promoted the boycott in terms that harken back to the nationwide uprisings.

The Resistance Units are responsible for staging demonstrations and posting messages in public that describe non-participation in “sham elections” as a means of “voting for regime change.” Many of these messages are accompanied by images of the PMOI’s founder Massoud Rajavi and his wife and prospective transitional president for a democratic Iran, Maryam Rajavi. Some of them also offer a response to Khamenei’s instructions regarding the electoral process, by quoting the Rajavis as saying the patriotic duty of freedom-loving Iranians is not to vote but to deny the system any possible claim to legitimacy.

Whoever “wins” next month’s election, it will certainly be difficult for him to claim legitimacy if the voter participation exceeds or even comes close to the historic lows seen during last year’s parliamentary election. This will be all the more difficult if it is clear to everyone that a mass boycott represents mass endorsement of the democratic Resistance movement behind it. And with that movement being the same one that inspired so many Iranians to directly confront the regime in the final years before the pandemic, the public’s endorsement of regime change should be very difficult to deny.

Following the Guardian Council’s decision, only seven candidates among 529 individuals were allowed to run for Iran’s Presidential election scheduled for June 18. The council practically paved the path for Iran’s current Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raisi—who has yet to resign from his position—to take office.

The Guardian Council, which is consisted of six faqihs, or expert clerics, appointed by the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and six jurists appointed by the Judiciary Chief, himself appointed by the Supreme Leader, barred potential rivals for Raisi’s presidency. Ali Larijani, the former Parliament Speaker; Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former President; and Eshaq Jahangiri, the current Vice-President, were among the disqualified candidates.

Raisi urged the council to reconsider the situation of several candidates, fearing public apathy toward the election. “I have made contacts, and I am holding consultations to make the election scene more competitive and participatory,” he sarcastically wrote on the banned Twitter platform while the Judiciary he leads has appointed six members of the 12-member council.

This election is taking place while the gap between the state and society has unprecedentedly widened and deepened. Fifty percent inflation, high prices of essential goods, systematic corruption, and the government’s failure to address the most fundamental grievances of citizens have caused an imminence distrust and even hatred toward the entire ruling system.

Due to his record, Raisi is considered as Khamenei’s favorite candidate for the election. As the deputy prosecutor of Tehran in 1988, he was a leading implementor of the extrajudicial executions that summer based on the Islamic Republic founder Ruhollah Khomeini’s fatwa.

According to the opposition Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK/PMOI), the government mass executed at least 30,000 political prisoners in 1988, mostly affiliated with the MEK. “Whoever at any stage continues to belong to the MEK must be executed. Annihilate the enemies of Islam immediately,” read Khomeini’s fatwa.

In an open letter published on May 3, some 152 former United Nations officials, human rights experts, and jurists urged UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet to establish a commission of inquiry into Iran’s 1988 extrajudicial executions of thousands of political prisoners.

Previously, on September 3, 2020, seven UN special rapporteurs had announced that the 1988 extrajudicial executions and forced disappearances of thousands of political prisoners may amount to crimes against humanity.

Furthermore, in a backlash to Khamenei’s desire to appoint Raisi as President, Iranian dissidents intensified their activities inside Iran and abroad, revealing Raisi’s crimes against MEK members and supporters in 1988 and his harrowing human rights record as the judiciary chief.

However, in flagrant defiance of international and domestic appeals, the Khamenei-controlled Guardian Council qualified ‘lucky Raisi’ and ‘six hopeful losers’ to run for the Presidential competition. With such action, the supreme leader obviously announced his unilateral path for maximum isolation.

Khamenei practically put an end to the Vienna-based nuclear negotiations despite appeaser counterparties’ willingness to offer sanctions relief to Tehran at all costs. In such circumstances, not only does reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal not loom but signing any accord is unlikely.

Meanwhile, the supreme leader as the highest authority was forced to ignore the game of reformists versus hardliners. For years, Iranian ‘reformists’ were terrifying the United States and European governments about a ‘hardline administration’ to gain international privileges. Currently, Khamenei fears the popular slogan during anti-establishment protests, chanted, “Reformists, hardliners, the game is over.”

Indeed, Khamenei’s decision made his domestic opponents concerned severely. In a letter to the supreme leader, ‘reformist’ President Hassan Rouhani urged Khamenei to order the Guardian Council to make changes in final lists declared by the council. “The president has ordered the interior minister to avoid announcing the Guardian Council’s lists,” said Mohammad Mohajeri, a journalist and politician affiliated with Khamenei’s faction.

Notably, an official opinion poll conducted by the Broadcasting Organization (IRIB) in May estimates turnout in the vote would be as low as 30 percent, significantly lower than any election held in the past 40 years.

Recently, in a street interview with the state-run Ara TV Channel on May 20, citizens had announced a boycott of the election. “I would not vote alike,” “I don’t vote,” “Why should I vote,” and “Nothing will change with my vote,” said ordinary citizens during the interview.

It is worth noting that the interview had been conducted and aired several days before the Guardian Council’s declaration about candidates. At the time, ‘reformists’ thought that their candidates would drag people to the polls meaning the society had already rejected the current establishment with its entire divisions.

Regarding Khamenei’s recent decision to purge all rivals, the possible turnout would be far lower than any prior estimation. However, the supreme leader seemingly prefers to clarify all opponents and applies his absolute power to countering growing protests inside the country and international isolation abroad.