French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to dissolve parliament and call a snap election, with voting beginning this Sunday, will divert the world’s attention from another possible political earthquake. On Friday, Iranian voters will fill the vacancy left by President Ebrahim Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash last month.
Even without the French vote, it would be tempting to trivialize the Iranian election’s significance. After all, the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is a bitter opponent of the West, and Raisi, his loyal follower, won decisively in 2021. So, won't Khamenei simply manipulate the upcoming vote in a way that will assure the victory of another extreme hard-liner?
Not so fast. Iranian politics has taken a decisive turn in the three years between Raisi’s rise and fall. Under Iran’s constitution, candidates must be approved by the Council of Guardians, dominated by the clerical elite, before they can run for office. In 2021, Raisi owed his victory to the Council’s refusal to award a place on the ballot to any strong opponent of Khamenei’s militant anti-Westernism.