Except for the tattered posters of Iran’s presidential candidates plastered on highway overpasses, there were few signs this weekend that the country had held a presidential election on Friday and was headed for a runoff.
There were few demonstrations to applaud the two main voters who come from opposite ends of the political spectrum and between whom Iranians will decide on July 5.
Even from official government figures, it was clear that the real winner of Friday’s election was Iran’s silent majority who left their ballot blank or did not cast any ballots. About 60 percent of eligible voters did not cast their ballots or chose to cast them blank.
“There was no point in voting,” said Bita Irani, a 40-year-old housewife from Tehran, Iran’s capital: “We had to choose between bad and worse. “There is no difference between one candidate and another.”
Many Iranians now see no reason to compromise, he said. “We are observers, not participants,” she said. “We watch the elections, and if there are riots, we watch them, but we won’t vote.”
His assessment was one I heard again and again as I spoke to people of different backgrounds in Tehran, including some who had voted but seemed to be bracing for disappointment.
Many people were distressed by their past electoral experiences and dissatisfied with their leaders’ inability to address Iran’s most pressing problems, particularly the weakened economy.
Still, despite Iran’s limited tolerance for dissent, people spoke with some freedom, suggesting a skeptical mood in the capital.
Most important was the frustrated history of Iran’s reform movement, which attempted to make the Islamic Republic’s internal and external policies more flexible, from relaxing social freedoms to improving relations with the West. Several prominent Iranians, including two presidents, had adopted reformist platforms, but their efforts were consistently blocked by the country’s religious leaders, sparking waves of protests that ended in repression and violence.
The most recent of those efforts took the form of a nationwide uprising in 2022 led by women. It began as a protest against Iran’s mandatory hijab law but soon broadened into demands for an end to clerical rule. By the time the demonstrations were suppressed, more than 500 people had been killed and more than 22,000 detained, according to a United Nations fact-checking mission.
These recent defeats caused even those who voted for the only reformist candidate in these elections to moderate their expectations.
Farzad Jafari, 36, owner of an agricultural products export company, was sitting with four friends at a neighborhood cafe in a tree-lined square in northern Tehran on Saturday, a day after the vote. He said he had hardly bothered to vote.
Most people he knew did not participate in this round of the presidential race, he said, and of the four people who had coffee with him, only Mr. Jafari and one of his friends had voted.
“I didn’t want to vote at all because they excluded those who should have been in the race,” Jafari said, referring to Iran’s system of having a council of Muslim clerics, known as the Guardian Council, vet potential candidates.
He realized, he said, that it was unlikely anyone could bring about change because ultimately all decisions are made by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader.
After the first round of voting, only two candidates remained in the race: Masoud Pezeshkian, a reformist for whom Jafari had voted, and Saeed Jalili, an ultra-conservative former nuclear negotiator.
The fact that a reformist candidate had made it to the second round seemed to energize Jafari and another man at the table and they were soon planning their next steps. They talked about which candidate would get the votes of those no longer in the race and how many Iranians who boycotted the first round would be able to vote in the second.
The key question, however, was whether a possible runoff between a hardline conservative and a reformist will motivate reform voters to turn out to vote on July 5, including those who boycotted the first round. If so, that could be seen as a victory for the government, which views turnout in elections as a measure of the regime’s legitimacy.
When the conversation turned to Friday’s runoff and I asked if those who hadn’t voted in the first round could do so in the second, three of them shook their heads. Jafari looked remorseful.
“People have no hope,” he said, but then added: “But the point is, all we can do is hope.”
Similar sentiments prevailed in the square among four women who were gathering before shopping at the crowded Tajrish bazaar, where saffron and cardamom are sold, as well as curtain fabrics, fine cotton scarves and imitation designer bags, along with pots and tubs of homemade yogurt.
The women could not have been more different in politics, dress and tone. Fatima, a 40-year-old mother of three, wore a black chador. Sherveen, 52, a civil engineer, wore a modern-cut mustard-coloured blouse and rust-coloured trousers. Her headscarf barely covered her head. A third woman wore elegant loose linen trousers and her thin white hijab draped over her shoulders.
Of the four women, two voted and two did not. The four asked to be mentioned only by their first names for fear of reprisals at their jobs or from their families.
Even Fatima, who voted for the most conservative candidate and seemed the most committed to the elections, didn’t seem really enthusiastic. For her, voting was a religious duty.
But, he added, if the reformist candidate wins, “I will support him.”
Fatima found comfort and stability in the fact that all the candidates were approved by Iran’s religious leadership, contrary to many Iranians, who saw such selection as a way to curb attempts to change Iran’s clergy-dominated system.
Sherveen, on the other hand, said he had lost all faith in the government and, like many educated and skilled Iranians, was considering leaving Iran. He is thinking about going to Canada, although not yet: his son was in his last year of high school. Her daughter is already in Toronto, as are several of her siblings.
“Unfortunately, we do not trust anyone who the government allows to run,” he said. “Everything is getting worse. It used to be better five or ten years ago, but now we have less money, less freedoms. Economy and freedom, those are the key.”
