Iran's reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian won a runoff presidential election on Saturday against hard-liner Saeed Jalili , the interior ministry said.
After Iran’s June 28 presidential election saw the lowest turnout in history, Pezeshkian received 16.3 million in the second round of polling on Friday against ultraconservative Saeed Jalili‘s 13.5 million votes to clinch victory, news agency Agence France-Presse reported quoting electoral authority spokesman Mohsen Eslami.
As per the report, the total voter turnout stood at 49.8 percent, the lowest in history.
Who Is Masoud Pezeshkian?
Iran's president-elect Masoud Pezeshkian is a 69-year-old cardiac surgeon who has aligned himself with other moderate and reformist figures in Iran during his campaign to replace the late President Ebrahim Raisi, a hard-line protégé of Khamenei killed in a helicopter crash in May.
The low-profile moderate Pezeshkian carries the hopes of millions of Iranians seeking less restrictions on social freedoms and a more pragmatic foreign policy, according to a report by the news agency Reuters.
After the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022, Pezeshkian, then a lawmaker, wrote that it was “unacceptable in the Islamic Republic to arrest a girl for her hijab and then hand over her dead body to her family.”
However, days later when nationwide protests and a bloody crackdown on all dissent started in Iran, he warned that those “insulting the supreme leader … will create nothing except long-lasting anger and hatred in the society.”
The stances by Pezeshkian highlight the dualities of being a reformist politician within Iran’s Shiite theocracy — always pushing for change but never radically challenging the system overseen by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a report by Associated Press said while describing the President-elect.
Pezeshkian reportedly managed to win with a constituency - whose core was believed to be the urban middle class and young - that had been widely disillusioned by years of security crackdowns that stifled any public dissent from Islamist orthodoxy.
Pezeshkian And Iran's International Relations
The world powers are likely to welcome him as someone who might pursue peaceful ways out of a tense standoff with Iran over its fast-advancing nuclear programme. He has pledged to promote a pragmatic foreign policy, ease tensions over now-stalled negotiations with major powers to revive a 2015 nuclear pact and improve prospects for social liberalisation and political pluralism.
Under Iran's dual system of clerical and republican rule, the president cannot usher in any major policy shift on Iran's nuclear programme or support for militia groups across the Middle East, since Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calls all the shots on top state matters. However, the president can influence the tone of Iran's policy and he will be closely involved in selecting the successor to Khamenei, now 85.
In 2018, after the then-US President Donald Trump ditched the pact and reimposed sanctions on Iran, the move prompted Tehran to progressively violate the agreement's nuclear limits. While campaigning for president, Pezeshkian advocated limited social and economic reforms and engagement with the United States over the nuclear program to lift sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy.
As the powers of the elected president are circumscribed by those of Khamenei, many Iranians keen for political pluralism at home and an end to Iran's isolation abroad doubt the country's ruling theocracy would let Pezeshkian make major changes even if he tried.
'Faithful To Supreme Leader'
According to a Reuters' report, Pezeshkian is faithful to Iran's theocratic rule with no intention of confronting the powerful security hawks and clerical rulers. In TV debates and interviews, he has promised not to contest Khamenei's policies.
"If I try but fail to fulfil my campaign promises, I would say goodbye to political work and not continue. There is no point in wasting our life and not being able to serve our dear people," Pezeshkian said in a video message to voters.
Resurfaced from quiescence after years of political isolation, the reformist camp led by former President Mohammad Khatami endorsed Pezeshkian in the election after the death of hardline President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in May.
Pezeshkian's views offer a contrast to those of Raisi, a Khamenei protege who tightened enforcement of a law curbing women's dress and took a tough stance in now-moribund negotiations with major powers to revive the nuclear deal.
Pezeshkian's Politics Over The Years
As a lawmaker since 2008, Pezeshkian, an Azeri who supports the rights of fellow ethnic minorities, has criticised the clerical establishment's suppression of political and social dissent.
In 2022, he demanded clarification from authorities about the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died in custody after she was arrested for allegedly violating a law restricting women's dress.
"We will respect the hijab law, but there should never be any intrusive or inhumane behaviour toward women," Reuters quoted Pezeshkian as saying after after casting his vote in the first round.
At a Tehran University meeting last month, responding to a question about students imprisoned on charges linked to 2022-23 unrest, Pezeshkian said "political prisoners are not within my scope, and if I want to do something, I have no authority".
During the Iran-Iraq war in 1980s, Pezeshkian, a combatant and physician, was tasked with the deployment of medical teams to the front lines.
He was health minister from 2001-5 in Khatami's second term.
Pezeshkian lost his wife and one of his children in a car accident in 1994. He raised his surviving two sons and a daughter alone, opting to never remarry.