The absence of formal political parties in Iran means that most political currents or movements rely heavily on charismatic political leaders who can capture the electorate's imagination. Ofttimes, these leaders, despite their shortcomings, can count on a solid base of voters during elections. But Hassan Rouhani's election as president presented a shift in this dynamic, Ahmad Gholami wrote in Shargh Daily, one of Iran’s most prominent Reformist newspapers.

In an op-ed piece titled, “A vote is just a vote, it’s not allegiance,” Gholami used the religiously charged “bayah” for allegiance, which literally means “oath of allegiance to a leader.” 

“It goes without saying that it is a tangible and objective experience that the June 2013 elections had deep differences with previous elections," he wrote. "If we compare them with the two surprising rounds, we will reach useful and interesting results.” By “surprising rounds,” Gholami means the election of Reformist Mohammad Khatami in 1997 and hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election in 2005.

Gholami described Khatami’s election as “an explosion of passion … that slowly decreased among the people.” Khatami’s 2nd Khordad election introduced the Reformist discourse — which had been mainly a theoretical discourse among intellectuals for bringing about political change — to the masses. But, Gholami wrote, “for the elite of the society the idealism of the 2nd Khordad turned into reality and for the political merchants it became [a matter] of expedience.” The short-lived and stunted ambitions of the Khatami years resulted in “the tearing of the elite from the middle classes.”