GUIDANCE

What Iran's Next Vote Means for Policy and the Presidency

Emily Hawthorne

Senior Middle East and North Africa Analyst at RANE

Feb 19, 2020 | 10:00 GMT

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani presents the budget for the fiscal year that starts in late March 2020 on Dec. 8, 2019. Rouhani described it as a "budget of resistance" against crippling U.S. sanctions.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani addresses the country's parliament in Tehran on Dec. 8, 2019. On Feb. 21, Iran will hold its first parliamentary elections since the United States began ramping up its 'maximum pressure' campaign.

(STR/afp/AFP via Getty Images)

Highlights

Iran's economic struggles and intensifying tensions with the United States have helped clear the path to victory for conservative candidates in the country's upcoming parliamentary elections.
The selection of the next parliament speaker will help indicate whether policy debates in the new legislature will take a more hard-line or traditionalist stance.
Regardless of the election outcome, Iranians' mounting disillusionment with their government could ultimately undermine the next parliament's legitimacy, as well as the electoral prospects of moderate presidential candidates in 2021.

On Feb. 21, Iran will hold the first round of parliamentary elections that could usher in the return of a more conservative legislature. With moderates and reformists taking a back seat, such an outcome would nudge Tehran toward more hard-line and hawkish foreign policies, leaving less room for negotiation with the West amid soaring U.S.-Iran tensions. Regardless of its next ideological make-up, however, Iran's incoming parliament will struggle more than ever to answer the economic and social demands of an increasingly desperate and cash-strapped electorate -- a reality that could have dire consequences for Tehran's political stability ahead of the country's crucial 2021 presidential election....

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