In a momentous year of elections around the world, there are unexpected polls taking place in Iran with little publicity abroad, but of great significance to the country, the region and beyond.
The unscheduled Iranian election follows the death of the president, Ebrahim Raisi, last month in a helicopter crash. It comes at a time when there is fear of a wider conflagration spreading across the Middle East out of the Gaza War.
After months of escalating artillery, rocket and missile exchanges across the Lebanese border, the prospect of a direct conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which has close links to Tehran, is higher than ever, with other Iranian allies possibly joining the fight.
Fellow members of what Iran calls the "Axis of Resistance" against Israel and the US – Shia militias in Syria and Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen – have threatened action. Tehran has declared that “any imprudent decision by the occupying Israeli regime will have one ultimate loser, the Zionist entity.”
The chances of reducing tension between the largest Shia country in the world, one which may acquire nuclear weapons in the future, and the international community will depend, to an extent, on the winner of the election: but more on two men who are not taking part in it.
No significant decision is made by the Islamic Republic without the authorisation of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The chances of establishing good relations with the West will also be affected by whether Donald Trump gets back to the White House in November – the prospect of which looks stronger today after Joe Biden’s alarmingly stumbling performance in the US presidential debate.
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