As the June 18 Iranian election approaches, the Middle Eastern Studies Forum (MESF) has launched a new website, Iran Election 2021, and podcast, Iran Election 1400, covering the campaign and post-election period. Run by Prof Shahram Akbarzadeh, Dr Mahmoud Pargoo and Dr James Barry, the website provides an overview of Iranian politics, covers the latest news and analysis of the election, and examines presidential candidates and current polls.

This week in Iran, nominations for presidential candidates opened, allowing potential candidates to nominate themselves to the Guardian Council who will name just a tiny portion of potentially hundreds of nominees as candidates.

Though the council’s selection process is opaque, and criticisms have been made of the council’s preference of military candidates, the campaign period that follows is one of the few periods of open, factional political contest during which usually taboo subjects are debated in public.

Although Iranian politics may seem to have little impact on Australia and other Western democracies, it was just over a year ago that a US–Iran war seemed a real possibility, and this with a moderate Iranian president in Hassan Rouhani. With the team behind Iran Election 2021 anticipating a shift to a more conservative government as Rouhani’s second term comes to its conclusion, the outcomes of Iran’s 2021 election will be significant both domestically and internationally.

The podcast, hosted by Dr Barry, will have weekly guests to discuss the week’s events in Iran, the various candidates and campaign analysis. The podcast will also include interviews with leading analysts and activists in Iran and abroad covering topics affecting Iranian society today. In episode 1, Dr Barry and Dr Naser Ghobadzadeh provide an introduction to Iran’s political system, the various political players, the important issues for this year’s elections and the potential presidential candidates.

As part of MESF’s Iran election coverage, the network will also be running an online event on May 18, ‘Iran’s 2021 Presidential election’, with Prof John Keane (University of Sydney), Dr Sanam Vakil (Chatham House) and Dr Mahmoud Pargoo (Deakin University).

The event will also serve as a book launch for the new book by Dr Pargoo and Prof Akbarzadeh, Presidential Elections in Iran: Islamic Idealism since the Revolution. Dr Pargoo and Prof Akbarzadeh argue in the book that the political and cultural landscape and expectations in Iran have secularized despite the reformist/conservative divide, and that debates in Iranian domestic politics are not between secularists and their opponents, but rather, between different kinds of secular forces. “The same trend applies to the forthcoming election in which candidates across the political spectrum have started their campaign using more secular rhetoric,” Dr Pargoo said.

With just over a month until polling day, Iran Election 2021 is be the place to find all the latest information on the news, developments and polling during Iran’s presidential election.