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Europe & Middle East / Comment

Election Analysis: a conservative mandate?

07/07/2005 By Bahman Baktiari

The Islamic Republic’s ninth presidential election on June 24 has Iranians debating, as during the previous election in 1997, whether their country is moving toward becoming more conservative, curtailing the social freedom enjoyed by many during the eight years of the Khatami presidency.

Most analysts and long time observers of Iranian politics anticipated a victory of former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Yet, in the runoff election on June 24, Iranian voters chose Tehran's conservative mayor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, over Rafsanjani. When the first round of voting ended on June 17, the country was seriously divided over who they believed to be the best choice for President with no single person receiving more than 50% of the vote, the threshold required to win in the first round.

Held only one week after the first round, the run-off election did little to transform Iranian factionalism.

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Keywords

Democracy Elections UN

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Bio author: Bahman Baktiari

Bahman Baktiari is Director of the International Affairs program and Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Maine. Bahman Baktiari received his Ph.D. from the Woodrow Wilson Department of Government and Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia.