5 - Consolidation of Secularity

Summary

Chapter 5 examines the 2013 and 2017 presidential elections, which brought moderate candidate Hassan Rouhani to power. Rouhani entered the 2013 election on an electoral platform that aimed to bring Iran out of international isolation as a means to improve the country’s dire economic crisis. With the exception of conservative hardliner Saeed Jalili, who campaigned on a religious, ideological platform, none of the candidates campaigned on the values and ideals of the revolution. The electoral fault-lines were predominately shaped around the economy, effective nuclear diplomacy and the establishment of détente foreign policies. This chapter will then explore the 2017 election, which was perhaps the most secular election in the Islamic Republic’s forty-year history. What was astonishing in this election was not what was said, but what was not said. None of the candidates dared to employ early revolutionary slogans. Certain phrases and concepts were missing from candidate campaigns, such as the dispossessed and disenfranchised, martyrdom, claims of being a true follower of the Supreme Leader, anti-Americanism and anti-capitalism. Through an exploration of these campaign discourses, this chapter will demonstrate that since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, electoral politics have tremendously evolved from Khomeini’s revolutionary religiosity to encompass liberal, secular values and ideals.