What Western media aren’t telling you about Iran’s elections and democracy

Those who source information only from the mainstream media have been made to believe that there are no elections in Iran and the people do not choose their leaders.

References are made to a country governed by an “authoritarian regime”, “dictatorship” and “mad mullahs”.  Who can blame you if you believe that the Iranian government has no support from its people if your only point of reference is the mainstream Western media?

A referendum on creating an Islamic Republic was held in Iran on the 30th and 31st of March 1979, and 98.2% of eligible citizens voted in the referendum, with 99.3 percent voting in favour of an Islamic government. This demonstrates that the Islamic government at its very inception received overwhelming support from its citizens.

Iran holds presidential elections every four years. The president of Iran is elected by popular elections. Iran has universal suffrage, where all adult citizens are eligible to vote, and they can do so freely.  The fact is that since the 1979 revolution, Iran has held regular elections with a voter turnout averaging more than 55% of the electoral vote.

The first presidential election was held in 1980 with a voter turnout of 63.6%.

In 1985 it was 66.4%

In 1989 it was 72.7%. The high turnout in this election was after the passing of Imam Khomeini and the majority of Iranians again overwhelmingly expressed their support for the Islamic government after the leader of the revolution had passed.

In 1993 the turnout was 49.5%.

In 1997 it was 79.5%.

In 2001 it was 63.4%.

In 2009 it was 49.5%.

In 2009, it was 85%.

In 2013 it was 72.7%.

In 2017 it was 73%.

In 2021 it was 48.8%.

The last presidential election was in 2024 after the death of President Ebrahim Raisi. The voter turnout in this election runoff was 49.6%, apparently amongst the lowest voter turnouts since the Revolution. Reformist candidate Masood Pezeshkian ascended to the presidency with 16.3 million votes, whereas his rival, principalist Saeed Jalili obtained 13.5 million votes.

Close to 30 million Iranians voted in the last elections. The Iranian political system is a highly contested space. Pezeshkian is a reformist who seeks more engagement with the West and further relaxation of social laws, whereas Principlaists advocate for the continuation of revolutionary principles and defiance towards imperialism.

A glance at the presidential electoral results reveals that the Islamic Government has enjoyed overwhelming popular support. When you have voter turnouts of 72%, 73%, 79%, and 85%, the figures speak for themselves. Interestingly, the voter turnout in Iran surpasses that of most Western liberal democracies.  It is true that voter turnout in the last two presidential elections was low,, but even at 48%, it is considered acceptable in Western democracies.

The Iranian government is far from perfect. It has its failings, but it is for the people of Iran alone to decide the form of government they want and who they want to elect to govern them.

The allegation that the government lacks legitimacy is not rooted in facts because close to 50% of the eligible voters participated in the elections. Here we are talking about the last elections in 2024 with the lowest voter turnout of approximately 30 million people. Make no mistake, any war on Iran that results in regime change translates into American and Israeli bombs on the 30 million Iranian ballots. 

Should regime change result from American-Israeli military intervention, these thirty million Iranians could very well argue that it is a war against democracy and resort to taking up arms against a regime installed by America and Israel.

Instead of probing why the West and the Trump administration in particular failed so dismally in political engagement with the Pezeshkian administration, which was open to political dialogue, the mainstream media instead peddles the fictitious narrative that the Iranian government lacks legitimacy because it has no support from the Iranian people. 

Pezeshkian ran on an electoral ticket that promoted dialogue with the West and a resolution to the nuclear dispute.

The Pezeshkian administration was engaging in dialogue in good faith with the Trump administration, and just a few days before finalising a deal on Iran’s nuclear programme, Trump gave the green light to Israel to unlawfully attack Iran and thereafter the Trump administration also joined the war by bombing Iran. Trump walked away from peace and chose war because Israel wanted war with Iran.

By presenting a false narrative that the Islamic Government is a regime, unelected and illegitimate, the mainstream media is deliberately seeking to delegitimize Iran and “other” the Iranian people in order to manufacture consent for war against Iran.

Have you ever heard Western media make any reference to the legitimacy and electoral support for governments in the U.A.E., Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, or Egypt? Why not? Why will they not even compare the electoral support from these states with that of Islamic Iran?

Suleiman is a social justice lawyer and former head of the law clinic for Lawyers for Human Rights in Pretoria and a research associate at Media Review Network