TEHRAN, Iran — Five months before Iran’s presidential elections, speculation is rife over who will succeed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The president is constitutionally forced to leave office in June, and will leave behind a widespread yearning for change. But this summer’s elections are unlikely to usher in a new reformist era in Iran.

Two years after opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, along with Mousavi’s wife Zahra Rahnavard, were placed under house arrest, the space carved out for reformists in national politics has narrowed to near-invisibility. For reformists, the elections will not be a genuine fight for power, but a catch-22 of either boycotting the vote in protest of the fraudulent elections of 2009 or participating to keep a presence in the system.

“Why should people vote when the person they view as their representative is still under house arrest?” asked Ali, 27, a longtime activist and supporter of Mousavi who, like others interviewed by Al-Monitor, asked not to be fully named for fear of government retribution.

Azadeh, 34, said she won’t vote either, but thinks a genuine reformist candidate could get a lot of support: “People don't want to lose hope; they want to rely on someone,” she said. “They just vote for the least bad candidate.”