Iran International
The race for Tehran’s City Council elections is heating up among state-aligned factions almost entirely detached from an electorate which has largely quit the ballot box.
Preoccupied with the daily struggle to make ends meet—and having lost hope in meaningful change through elections—many in Iran’s capital view the spectacle of rival elites competing for power as little more than political theatre.
Turnout in Tehran’s last council election barely reached 25 percent. Mehdi Chamran, the conservative who now chairs the council, was elected with votes from roughly five percent of eligible citizens.
Sociologist Masoumeh Entezam recently described this decline as part of a deeper “crisis of participation” marked by “silent votes” and the erosion of political representation.
Writing in the government’s official daily Iran, she said many Iranians now see elections as contests for “specific factions rather than society at large,” but added that the new “proportional” system—to be introduced in next year’s Tehran council elections—could “open a small window toward reviving the institution of elections.”
Power launchpad
Despite outside doubts, within Iran’s insular political class the race is seen as highly consequential.
The Tehran City Council not only selects the capital’s mayor but has long served as a launchpad for national ambitions.
In 1997, the municipality’s reformist-aligned daily Hamshahri helped propel Mohammad Khatami’s late campaign to victory. Eight years later, then-mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, appointed by the ultraconservative Abadgaran faction that controlled the council, rode the same route to the presidency.
With the next election due in May 2026, nearly every major political camp is maneuvering to secure a foothold.
Reformists and centrist parties—often sidelined in recent years—have vowed to present a unified list, a first for Iran’s local elections, according to prominent centrist figure Hossein Marashi.
Hardliners, despite controlling the current council that installed Alireza Zakani as mayor, remain divided. Some members have resigned early to prepare their own bids.
Hardliners divided
Among the key contenders are the ultraconservative Paydari Party and Sharian, a newer faction led by Mehrdad Bazrpash, a former protégé of hardline presidents Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ebrahim Raisi.
Reports in Tehran media suggest Bazrpash now leads a well-funded campaign to secure the mayorship.
Outlets such as Khorassan and Khabar Online describe the council race as a “preliminary stage” for the next presidential contest, warning that hardliners risk repeating the infighting and disillusion that have already alienated many urban voters.
Despite the fevered jockeying among Iran’s political elite, few believe the outcome will meaningfully alter the city’s direction—or the country’s.
As in other elections under the Islamic Republic, the final result is widely expected to align with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s preferences, not the will of an increasingly detached public.
Karroubi made the remarks during a meeting with the family of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the Green Movement leader who has been under house arrest since 2011. Both men were presidential candidates in the disputed 2009 election, which they contended was marred by fraud and irregularities.
“In the 2009 election, Mr. Khamenei not only did not tolerate the people’s vote, but he supported fraud and violent suppression and accused us of sedition, lack of insight and indecency,” Karroubi said.
The 2009 election, in which authorities swiftly declared Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner, triggered one of the biggest street unrests since the 1979 revolution, with mass demonstrations and a crackdown by security forces. Khamenei at the time urged Iranians to accept the result and later warned protesters to end rallies.
"Khamenei claimed insight, but destroyed the economy, culture, security and ethics, and what you see today is the product of that wrong approach,” Karroubi was quoted as saying by Iranian media.
Karroubi, who is no longer under house arrest, said both he and Mousavi “saw deviation” in 2009 and intervened out of concern for the country, arguing that the growing role of the Revolutionary Guards, Basij militia and security agencies in politics and the economy had “ruined” governance and eroded oversight.
“Oversight bodies lost their effectiveness and unbridled corruption spread throughout the country.”
Karroubi, a former parliament speaker who ran in 2009, also called for the release of Mousavi and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard. “I hope that childish grudges and stubbornness will end, and that we will soon witness the freedom of Mr. Mousavi and his respected wife,” he said.
Mousavi, a former prime minister who also contested the 2009 vote, has remained under house arrest with Rahnavard since 2011, while Karroubi’s detention eased earlier this year.
Karroubi linked political decisions to Iran’s economic deterioration, citing the currency’s collapse since their detention. “The day we went into house arrest, one dollar was 900 tomans and today it is 108,000 tomans, and if this path is not corrected God knows how much it will be in the near future,” he said.
He also criticized what he called excessive alignment with Moscow by some officials and lawmakers. “The deviation from the revolution and the martyrs’ ideals is such that some military men in parliament tear their shirts for [Vladimir] Putin,” he said.
Mousavi, who in July called for a referendum to convene a constitutional assembly, has said Iran’s political structure “does not represent all Iranians.”
Iranian authorities say the 2009 election was fair and that security measures then and since have been necessary to preserve order.
Ayandeh survived on illusion—paying old investors with new deposits while building an empire of glass and marble called Iran Mall.
Earlier this week, Iran’s Central Bank ordered its liquidation into the state-owned Bank Melli, the country’s largest financial institution.
Built on sand
Founded in 2010 by businessman Ali Ansari, Ayandeh emerged from the merger of his Bank Tat with several smaller institutions.
Within a few years, it shook up Iran’s banking sector by offering interest rates roughly four percentage points higher than those allowed by the Money and Credit Council.
The strategy drew millions of depositors and rapidly expanded its market share; by 2017, Ayandeh held 7.6 percent of all deposits in Iran’s banking system. Beneath that success lay a web of risky loans and inflated promises.
By 2020, the bank’s fortunes had reversed, and calls for its liquidation began. When it was finally folded into Bank Melli, the savings of seven million depositors were trapped in bad loans and speculative ventures.
Much like a Ponzi scheme, Ayandeh relied on a steady inflow of new deposits to pay earlier investors while channeling enormous sums into illiquid assets—mostly real estate.
Biggest Gamble: Iran Mall
Experts trace Ayandeh’s downfall to its massive exposure to real estate, especially the Iran Mall—a colossal shopping and leisure complex west of Tehran (1.95 million square meters) developed and owned by Ansari himself.
Investigations showed that roughly 70 percent of Ayandeh’s lending went to the Iran Mall Development Company, a subsidiary fully owned by the bank.
The loans exceeded the legal limit for a single borrower by more than a thousandfold—blatant self-dealing that violated banking laws capping ownership of any single shareholder at 10 percent, or 30 percent with Central Bank approval.
Ayandeh’s executives effectively lent billions to themselves, betting that post-nuclear-deal optimism and foreign investment would transform Iran Mall into a profit engine.
But after the US withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, Iran’s economy contracted, purchasing power plunged, and foreign brands stayed away. What was meant as a monument to modern commerce became a mausoleum of financial hubris and cronyism.
Shielded by Power
Ansari, now 63, began building his empire in his twenties, founding Bank Tat in 2009 with a capital base of 2 trillion rials (about $200 million at the time) before merging it with other institutions to form Ayandeh.
Beyond Iran Mall, he owned several luxury properties, including a Tehran tower sold to convicted tycoon Babak Zanjani, who paid only one-fifth of the price.
After Ayandeh’s dissolution, Ansari claimed his “conscience is clear,” though he has faced no legal proceedings.
Rumors persist of political protection, including alleged ties to Mojtaba Khamenei, the Supreme Leader’s son, and Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, Mojtaba’s father-in-law.
These remain unverified but reinforce perceptions that Ayandeh’s rise and fal were inseparable from Iran’s political elite.
‘People pay the price’
By the time the Central Bank dissolved Ayandeh, the bank was 550 quadrillion rials (roughly $5.1 billion) in debt.
If its real-estate assets—including Iran Mall—cannot be sold to cover liabilities, the Central Bank will have to print money to repay depositors, injecting vast sums into the economy—a “pure inflationary disaster,” as the financial outlet Bourse Press warned.
Officials have pledged that major shareholders will be held accountable and small depositors repaid first, but skepticism abounds.
Economist Ali Sarzaeem argued that the Central Bank long knew the scale of Ayandeh’s abuses but lacked the will to act.
“If the bank’s assets are overvalued or unsellable,” he wrote, “the gap between debt and equity will again be filled from the pockets of ordinary Iranians.”
The moderate-conservative Jomhuri Eslami painted an even bleaker picture: “Even more tragic is that this infection has been passed on to Bank Melli—and that bank too will sooner or later meet the same fate.”