Reform or populism

Reform or populism

Iranian voters have to choose between moderate Hassan Rouhani and a hardline cleric.
Sandwiched between elections in France and South Korea on the one hand and Britain and Germany on the other, Iran will vote for its next president on May 19. As in the other cases, the result in Iran too will represent a choice of two sharply different visions of the future. If President Hassan Rouhani is re-elected, it would amount to winning a referendum on the nuclear deal he scripted with the US two years ago. It would strengthen the moderates and modernisation.
But a victory for hardline candidate Ebrahim Raisi would indicate that voters feel the promise of the nuclear deal, previously hyped as Iran's Berlin Wall destruction moment, have remained unmet. Lifting of sanctions was supposed to set off an economic boom. But the lifting is taking place in phases, and economic benefits take time to materialise. It is hard to guess how Iranian voters will call this one. If they lose patience and usher in Raisi it could see reformers being purged from the administration, anti-Americanism revitalised and isolationist nationalism marching ahead. If Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 77, dies during the next term, this vote could also influence the choice of his successor. Whether the next supreme leader is hardline or moderate will influence geopolitics from Syria to Saudi Arabia.
For the global energy market, in this season of elections the Iranian one matters the most. An active player here is India's ONGC Videsh Ltd, which has bid for developing Iran's Farzad B gas field. Overall a Rouhani victory may suit India most, not just for the sake of stability and continuity in policy but also because New Delhi would not like to see confrontation between Tehran and the West. So for India it's comforting that no Iranian president has ever lost his bid for re-election.