Chapter 2 examines the Islamic Republic’s first five presidential elections, which were held in the revolution’s first decade. These elections brought to power Abolhassan Banisadr (1980), Mohammad-Ali Rajai (1981), Ali Khamenei (1981 and 1985) and Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989). This chapter highlights how presidential elections in this milieu were highly influenced by Khomeini’s religious revolutionary ethos, as reflected in the chapter’s title: ‘The Age of the Imam’. This ethos was pervasive and far from a distinguishing feature of the triumphant Islamic Republican Party (IRP). It was a characteristic of the age and its zeitgeist. Undoubtedly, there were disagreements, but these were framed and expressed in the context of revolutionary religiosity. Although the fifth election was held after the death of Khomeini in July 1989, it is included in this chapter as it was also guided by Khomeini's revolutionary principles. This chapter, and its focus on Khomeini’s religious revolutionary ethos, frames the ensuing transformation of electoral discourses and imaginaries in the post-Khomeini era.

Chapter 3 examines the 1993 (Rafsanjani), 1997 and 2001 (Khatami) elections, with a view to highlighting the departure from the three elements of Khomeini’s revolutionary religiosity. This shift was evidently influenced by major events of the time: the end of Iran’s eight-year war with Iraq, the death of Khomeini in 1989 and the rise of his successor, Ali Khamenei. These major events opened up Iran’s socio-political environment beyond the contours Khomeini’s revolutionary discourses of jihad, martyrdom, the afterlife and ascetic equality. During this period, and in line with the processes of secularization, the meaning of Islam was reappropriated and infused with new meaning. It was conveyed as a religion of free-thinking, welfare, prosperity, peace and life, as opposed to jihad, martyrdom and poverty as expressed in the revolution’s first decade.