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Join Telegram Channel- For young Iranian voters, memories of the 2022 leadership clashes have shaped the upcoming presidential race.
- All six candidates targeted young voters via social media, recognizing their role in Iran's political future.
- The memory of the 2022 protests continues to influence Iranian youth, shaping their vision of governance and political participation.
Atousa joined angry protests against Iran's leaders in 2022, which loyalists like Reza helped crush. Two years later, the political views of the two young Iranians remain opposed, reflecting a divide that will shape the outcome of this week's presidential elections.
Now 22, Atousa says she will abstain from voting in Friday's vote to choose a successor to Ebrahim Raïssi after his death in a helicopter crash, viewing the exercise with derision.
But Reza, 26, a devout member of the hardline Basij militia, intends to vote, a contrasting view of the election's value that underscores the division in Iran between supporters and opponents of the 45-year-old Islamic Republic .
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The six candidates – five radicals and one low-key moderate endorsed by a radical watchdog – courted young voters in speeches and campaign messages, using social media to reach 60% of the 85 million residents aged under 30 years old.
People light a fire during a protest against the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being arrested by the Islamic Republic's “morality police”, in Tehran, Iran, September 21, 2022. (West Asia News Agency)
“This election, like all elections in Iran, is a circus. Why should I vote when I want the regime to be overthrown?” Atousa told Reuters. She declined to be identified by her full name for security reasons.
“Even if it were a free and fair election and all candidates could participate in the race, the Iranian president has no power,” she said.
The hashtag #ElectionCircus has been widely posted on social media platform X by Iranians in recent weeks, while some Iranians at home and abroad have called for a boycott of the elections.
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In Iran's clerical system, the elected president runs the day-to-day government, but his powers are limited by those of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on major issues such as nuclear power and politics. foreign.
“RELIGIOUS DUTY TO VOTE”
Like many Iranian women and young people, Atousa joined protests in 2022 sparked by the death of a young Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, in police custody, after her arrest for allegedly violating Iran's mandatory Islamic dress code.
The unrest has escalated into the largest demonstration of opposition to Iran's religious leaders in years.
Atousa, then a student, was arrested during the protests and her dream of becoming an architect was shattered when she was expelled from the university as punishment for participating in the protests.
The Basij, a plainclothes branch of the elite Revolutionary Guards, deployed alongside uniformed security forces during the 2022 unrest and helped quell protests with lethal force.
More than 500 people, including 71 minors, were killed during protests, hundreds injured and thousands arrested in unrest that was eventually put down by security forces, rights groups said.
Iran has carried out seven executions linked to the unrest. Authorities did not give an official estimate of the death toll, but said dozens of members of the security forces were killed in “riots”.
A pro-government Iranian woman holds the Iranian flag during a rally against recent protest rallies in Iran, after the Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran, Iran, September 23, 2022. (Majid Asgaripour/West Asia News Agency)
“I will sacrifice my life for the leader and the Islamic Republic. It is my religious duty to vote. My participation will strengthen the Nezam (system),” said Reza, a native of the low-income Nazi district of Abad, south of Tehran.
Reza said he would support a hard-line candidate who champions Khamenei's “resistance economy,” a phrase meaning economic self-sufficiency, strengthening trade ties with regional neighbors and improving interaction economically with China and Russia.
The economy has been plagued by mismanagement, state corruption and reimposed sanctions since 2018 after the United States abandoned Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with six world powers.
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Reza and Atousa, both born after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, regret the 2022 protests, although for different reasons.
Reza blames the protests for putting increasing pressure on Iran from Western countries, which have imposed sanctions on Iranian security forces and officials over alleged human rights violations. Iran has accused Western powers of fomenting the unrest.
“I wish the protests had not happened… our enemies used it as an excuse to put pressure on our country,” he said.
Atousa looks back on this period with sadness.
“I was hopeful,” she said. “I thought that finally change would come and that I would be able to live a life without repression in a free country… I have paid a heavy price, but the regime is still there.”