Electoral bullshit in Iran: two candidates for President, two country proposals (without calling into question the religious regime)
Iran is holding the second round of presidential elections this Friday. The reformist Masoud Pezeshkian and the ultraconservative Saeed Jalili are opposed. Neither of them denies the Islamic Republic, but while Jalili, 58 years old, is a principlist – an apologist for the way of life at the beginning of the 1979 Revolution – Pezeshkian, 69, defends regime reform.
In the first round, Pezeshkian was the candidate with the most votes, with 10,415,991 votes cast (44.36%). Jalili was a short distance away, with 9,473,298 votes (40.35%). The participation rate stood at 39.93%, a new minimum turnout in the history of the Islamic Republic.
Faced with the urgency of recovering voters, in a context in which elections arouse little interest, Jalili and Pezeshkian present different proposals for Iran – from the relationship with the West to the mandatory use of hijab.
