[Source: Reuters]

Atousa joined angry protests against Iran’s rulers in 2022 that loyalists like Reza helped crush. Two years on, the two young Iranians’ political views remain at odds, reflecting a rift that will shape the outcome of presidential elections this week.

Now 22, Atousa says she will abstain from voting in Friday’s ballot to choose a successor to Ebrahim Raisi after his death in a helicopter crash, regarding the exercise with derision.

But Reza, 26, a religiously devout member of the hardline Basij militia, intends to vote, a contrasting view of the worth of the election that underscores the division in Iran between supporters and opponents of the 45-year-old Islamic Republic.

All six candidates – five hardliners and a low-key moderate approved by a hardline watchdog body – have been wooing youthful voters in speeches and campaign messages, using social media to reach the 60% of the 85 million population aged under 30.

“This election, like all elections in Iran, is a circus. Why should I vote when I want the regime to be toppled?,” Atousa told Reuters. She declined to be identified by her full name for security reasons.

“Even if it was a free and fair election and if all candidates could enter the race, the president in Iran has no power,” she said.
The hashtag #ElectionCircus has been widely posted on social media platform X by Iranians in the past few weeks, while some Iranians at home and abroad have called for an election boycott.

Under Iran’s clerical system, the elected president runs the government day-to-day but his powers are circumscribed by those of the hardline supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last word on top issues such as nuclear and foreign policy.