Iran's Election: Who Is Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran's President-elect?

Masoud Pezeshkian will sworn in as the Islamic Republic of Iran’s ninth President on August 4 or 5, according to the official IRNA news agency. The newly elected president will have 15 days to present his proposed ministers to the Parliament for a vote of confidence. Notably, Iran’s President is not the head of the state and the ultimate authority lies with the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who held the post for the last 35 years.

The 69 – year-old reformist secured more than 16 million votes nearly 54% of the total 30 million votes cast. The total turnout was 49.8% in the current Presidential elections. Pezeshkian won against the ultraconservative Saeed Jalili to replace late President Ebrahim Raisi who died in a helicopter crash on May 19.

Masoud Pezeshkian was born in 1954 in the city of Mahabad, in the northwestern province of West Azerbaijan.  Born from a mixed Azeri-Kurdish ancestry with knowledge of both languages, he successfully appealed to the people of both ethnic groups, which form 89% of the Iranian population. In 1994, he lost his wife and son in a car crash and later raised his daughter and son all alone without remarrying.

Read also: What Masoud Pezeshkian’s Presidential Win Means To India.

His political career started in the early 2000s, and served as health minister under Mohammad Khatami from 2001 to 2005. He represented the north-western city of Tabriz in Parliament in 2008 and was a deputy speaker from 2016 to 2020.

Masoud Pezeshkian belongs to the reformist faction in Iran. In Iran, the reformists are one ideological faction of the ruling elite. They are Islamist conservatives but believe in a more moderate version of the regime’s ideology that is expected to serve both the ruling clergy and Iranian society. Reformists led the administration from 1997 to 2005 and were part of a de facto coalition with Hassan Rouhani, a conservative. Reformists have always called for a more free and democratic society. The president-elect has remained critical for the country’s morality police.

The former heart surgeon and health minister campaigned on the promise to moderate Iran’s conservative outlook. Pezeshkian while preparing for the presidential campaign focused on economic hardships faced by Iran after the Western sanctions and blaming their conservative rivals. For his Presidential campaign, Pezeshkian recruited Mohammad Javad Zarif, the country’s former foreign minister who significantly contributed to strike the 2015 nuclear deal.

In his manifesto the president elect declared that his foreign policy would be ‘not anti – West, nor anti-East’. He has been critical for Iran’s former president’s foreign policy of deepening ties with Russia and China. However, this drew criticism from the Supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said that the US backed out of the nuclear deal and actively supports the ‘look to the East’ doctrine.

However, during his celebratory speech, he praised the ‘guidance’ of Ayatollah Khamenei, crediting the Supreme leader for his success in the elections.

However, President does not have direct control on Quds Forces but the foreign ministry can help the highest ranking Iranian diplomat to shape and implement policies. The administration could impact public discourse and promote policies that may not align with conservatives and can bring down the walls that Pezeshkian said which are built around the country by the hardliners.