BICOM

Iranians will go to the polls today to vote for a new president as the eight-year term of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad comes to an end.

However, it remains unclear how many Iranians will actually cast their vote in an election tightly controlled by the country’s clerical regime. All six remaining candidates have been carefully vetted by the all-powerful Guardian Council, headed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. There will be no foreign election observers to maintain democratic procedures, few foreign journalists have been allowed entry into the country and the Telegraph reports that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have set up secret prisons in residential areas in case the vote sparks mass protests. During the 2009 presidential election, there were widespread allegations of electoral fraud, leading to mass street protests which were brutally suppressed by Iranian security forces.

In the days preceding today’s vote, critics of the Iranian leadership’s policies have coalesced support around Hassan Rowhani. Although far from an opponent of Iran’s theocracy, Rowhani has openly challenged the regime’s priorities in televised debates between the candidates. Earlier this week, similarly-minded candidate Mohammed Reza Aref pulled out of the race, in order to strengthen Rowhani, who also received the public backing of two former-presidents Mohammed Khatami and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. The Guardian Council had refused to allow Rafsanjani himself to run.

The other five candidates are all considered conservatives, including Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and former-foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati. All are thought to be close to Ayatollah Khamenei, in particular Velayati and Jalili. However, Jalili’s campaign is reported to have floundered at the expense of Qalibaf. With the Khamenei-loyalist vote seemingly split, a second round of voting between two top candidates including Rowhani appears likely. It is a scenario which the clerical regime hoped to avoid, as it would threaten a repeat of the mass protests of 2009.