Baladi News – (Mervat Mohammad)
In a competition limited between two candidates, the current president Hassan Rohani and the hardline candidate Ibrahim Raisi, 56.41 million registered Iranians are going to cast their votes in the presidential elections to take place on Friday in 63 polling stations including 130 thousand ballot boxes and under the supervision of 71 thousand observers.
Despite their different orientations, both candidates, as shown in the electoral debates, agree that the shape of the Iranian military presence in Syria will not change.
The professor of Iranian studies at Ain Shams University in Egypt, Ahmed Lashin, emphasized that the Iranian role in Syria, Iraq, and even Yemen and Lebanon would not change with the change of the president.
The professor attributed that to the fact that the Iranian regional policy is determined by the Supreme Leader rather than the president.
Lashin believes that the way the Syrian case was approached during the campaigning was similar for both candidates. He indicated that the more crucial factor is the relations with the west. Whereas the conservatives, represented by Raisi, consider that it is important to sever ties with the west, the moderates, represented by Rohani, consider that keeping the relations with the west, and especially at economic level, is important.
Mohammad al-Manhaji, director of Bissan Center for Arab and Iranian Studies, said that “the fundamentals of the external policy are laid by the Supreme Council of Iranian National Security, which consists of 13 members, one of them is the prime minister. The head of the executive authority, i.e. the president, cannot object on what has been decided by the council.
Rani Jaber, the military analyst at Baladi News Network, likened the Iranian elections to the mock elections of Assad’s regime, because the winner is predetermined by the Supreme Leader.
Jaber considered that “the options in the Iranian elections are unreal, because there is no difference between the two candidates in terms of the general goals. Both of them are loyal to the Iranian regime, but each has his own modus operandi.”
Jaber emphasized that the Iranian president merely executes what the Supreme Leader Dictates, but the question is “what are the changes that would take place in the external Iranian policy when the current Leader dies and is replaced by another one?