The results of Iran’s presidential elections are now clear: with 62% of ballots, hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi will serve as president for the next four years. However, the elections seem to have no clear winner: neither for the opposition, which favored a boycott, nor the Islamic Republic establishment, which owes the ascendancy of its candidate to former US president Donald Trump.

The establishment candidate

The Iranian political establishment cleared the way for Raisi by having the Guardian Council bar prominent Reformists and moderates from the presidential race. It was to some extent worried about voter turnout as a notable portion of the Reformists’ base as well as activists opposed to the Islamic Republic opted to boycott the polls. Yet, while turnout is the lowest recorded for an Iranian presidential election so far, the fact that more than 48% of Iranians cast ballots—in polls which are usually considered as a referendum on how society perceives the establishment—cannot be ignored.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his supporters are likely to lay the blame for the lower turnout on the public itself as well as outgoing President Hassan Rouhani, including his moderate government’s dire performance on the economy.

Addressing the widespread voter apathy, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali (Aziz) Jafari—who served as chief commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) between 2007 and 2019—stated on June 18 that the current “frustration” is because of the Iranian electorate’s decision to vote for Rouhani in the 2013 and 2017 polls.

Meanwhile, on June 19, Khamenei thanked Iranians for voting while expressing his disapproval of the Rouhani administration’s alleged “irregularities” with reference to its management of the elections.

Soon after the initial results came out, Rouhani appeared in Raisi’s office at the judiciary, congratulating the incumbent chief justice while expressing his readiness to transfer his experiences to him.

The devil is in the detail

The details of the election results hold important messages for the Iranian political establishment. This year, more than 12% of votes were deemed invalid. Given that Khamenei had only two weeks earlier called protest votes religiously impermissible, it’s noteworthy that the proportion of invalid ballots this year is triple that of any prior presidential vote.

Furthermore, out of 59 million eligible voters, less than 29 million decided to cast their ballots. This means at least half of the electorate is dissatisfied with the Islamic Republic for various reasons. With his 17.9 million votes—less than a third of the electorate—Raisi will begin his term as a “minority president.”

Simultaneously, the boycott campaign does not appear to have been fully successful. Its aim was to undermine the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic by convincing people not to vote, bringing turnout—which has been above 70% in the past two presidential elections—below 40%. But they ultimately failed in their endeavor, as turnout was closer to 50%, or 48.8% to be precise.

In some ways, elements of the boycott campaign could have acted in favor of the Islamic Republic as videos of exiled activists intimidating voters at Iran’s diplomatic missions—including in the UK—went viral. The clips possibly persuaded some undecided religious voters to participate in the elections.

The road ahead

Meanwhile, the divided Reformists have found that their social capital has been damaged in recent years. The camp is out of touch with the dissatisfied public, whose demands are now going far beyond the elections and the person of the president.

In this vein, the Reformist movement may undergo significant changes as the camp’s younger generation is determined to do away with the old strategies and policies of their current leaders. What should not be neglected here is that the Reformists’ loss of social capital is also partly an outcome of hardliners inside Iran and regime-change activists abroad having both targeted them constantly in recent years to discredit them in the eyes of voters.

Though it may sound counterintuitive, the Reformists may face lessened restrictions once Raisi enters office as the establishment may have grown certain about their weakened status and position among the electorate. In this vein, senior Reformist politician Mohammad Reza Aref on June 19 called on Raisi not to allow the Reformist movement to be removed from the political stage. However, Raisi’s possible softened approach ahead does not necessarily mean that freedom of the press as well as political and social activism will be permitted to increase. On the contrary, if the economy begins improving, this will grant the establishment enough social capital to repress and to crack down on rights activists.

Raisi’s victory means that Khamenei and the establishment will once again exercise control over all branches of power and bodies in the country, just like under conservative former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s tenure (2005-2013). But even to the hardliners, there is a downside to this situation as history has shown that it only leads to internal disagreements and power struggles within the camp.

Indeed, public quarrels will likely soon emerge over both cabinet picks as well as control over key municipalities. Of note, Iran held local council polls concurrent with the presidential elections on June 18. In this vein, conservative infighting over the mayorship of Tehran—the country’s biggest municipality—is to be expected. Moreover, against this backdrop, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf may be among the first victims of intra-conservative tensions as the hardline Endurance Front—which is a leading supporter of Raisi and critical of Qalibaf—may move to unseat him in the coming years.

All in all, neither the Islamic Republic nor the boycott movement are the winners of this year’s presidential elections. As a “minority president,” Raisi to a large extent owes his office to Donald Trump. The former US president’s unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal—the signature foreign policy achievement of Rouhani—and reimposition have decimated Iran’s middle class and exposed the government to hardline criticism. In tandem, regime change activists—including those funded by the Trump administration—have done their utmost to destroy the popularity of the Reformists.

The outcome of these efforts is now clear; with ordinary Iranians turning away from the pro-democracy forces inside Iran, the political establishment’s candidate easily seized the presidency.