Al-Monitor:

President Hassan Rouhani won a second term in the May 19 presidential election with 57% of the vote. The polarization of the Iranian electorate led to a strong turnout of 73%, with some 41 million casting ballots. Rouhani, a Reformist, defeated hard-line rival Ebrahim Raisi, who had the backing of conservatives. The strong presence of pro-reform citizens and "gray voters" was key to the incumbent’s victory.

In the Iranian political lexicon, gray voters are those who usually don’t vote but are swing voters whenever they do participate in elections — such as in 2013 when Rouhani was first elected. The president has been representing both moderates and Reformist groups since 2013 after Reformists were marginalized over the disputed 2009 elections.

Raisi, who had reached out to low-income households with tempting promises of higher monthly cash subsidy payments, managed to fetch 15.7 million votes even though he is new to presidential races. Parviz Kazemi — a Cabinet member in the government of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-13) — had predicted that only 9 million to 10 million voters might be loyal to the conservative candidate, the Tadbir Khabar website reported April 28. Official data show that nearly 14 million people did not vote, leaving about 31 million voters categorized as loyal to moderates and Reformists or as gray voters. Nearly 6 million of the gray voters seemingly turned right toward the conservative hopeful.

This indicates that Raisi’s social base is now strong enough to oppose many of the policies of the elected president. His success in snaring so many votes in a short period of time is largely attributed to the verbal support he received from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. However, it should also be noted that many non-conservative citizens will vote for a candidate the supreme leader dislikes. Previous elections show that millions of gray voters, who normally do not vote for a variety of reasons, may turn out if they feel a certain candidate backed by Khamenei might be elected president...

Go to link