It’s time for Tehran to start listening to ethnic minority groups

Iran’s minority groups, and their struggle for equal rights, should not be remembered only during elections.

On June 18, the Islamic Republic of Iran will hold its 13th presidential election. This election will be one of the most critical in the country’s recent history for multiple reasons. The widening gap between the needs and desires of the Iranian people and those of the country’s rulers is profoundly undermining the regime’s legitimacy and the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s power. Thus, the regime is in desperate need of a credible election that would give it renewed legitimacy. Nevertheless, due to the country’s ongoing political and economic crisis, and the Guardian Council’s decision to ban several prominent candidates from participating in the presidential race, the voter turnout on Friday is expected to be low, raising questions about the credibility of the election. The seven candidates who have been approved by the Council to participate in the election are all focusing on different socio-economic and political issues in their campaigns and making promises to handle future challenges better than the current government to convince Iranians to come to the polls and vote for them. One of the issues nearly all candidates touched upon during their campaigns was ethnic rights. In an effort to attract Iran’s ethnic minority groups – who together make up 40 to 50 percent of the population – to the polls, the candidates repeatedly expressed sympathy for their concerns. Two candidates, Mohsen Mehralizadeh and Abdolnasser Hemmati, even addressed the members of the Azeri minority in their mother tongue to garner their support. Nevertheless, despite cynically pandering to ethnic minorities to reach their electoral goals, none of the candidates made credible promises to these groups, or explicitly criticised the regime’s ethnic policies.