DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — After the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, Iranian lawmaker Masoud Pezeshkian wrote that it was “unacceptable within the Islamic Republic to arrest a woman for her hijab after which hand over her useless physique to her household.”
Days later, as nationwide protests and a bloody crackdown on all dissent took maintain, he warned that these “insulting the supreme chief … will create nothing besides long-lasting anger and hatred within the society.”
The stances by Pezeshkian, now Iran’s 69-year-old president-elect, spotlight the dualities of being a reformist politician inside Iran’s Shiite theocracy — all the time pushing for change however by no means radically difficult the system overseen by Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
After Iran’s June 28 presidential election noticed the lowest turnout in history, Pezeshkian gained 16.3 million votes in opposition to hard-liner Saeed Jalili ‘s 13.5 million votes to clinch Friday’s runoff election. Pezeshkian now should convince a public angered by years of financial ache and bloody crackdowns that he could make the modifications he promised.
“We’re shedding our backing within the society, due to our habits, excessive costs, our therapy of women and since we censor the web,” Pezeshkian mentioned at a televised debate Monday night time. “Individuals are discontent with us due to our habits.”
Pezeshkian has aligned himself with different reasonable and reformist figures throughout his marketing campaign to exchange the late President Ebrahim Raisi, a hard-line protégé of Khamenei killed in a helicopter crash in May. His major advocate has been former International Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who reached Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers that noticed sanctions lifted in alternate for the atomic program being drastically curtailed.
Iranian rushed into the streets in a carnival-like expression of hope that the deal would lastly see their nation enter the worldwide neighborhood. However in 2018, then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord, setting in movement a collection of assaults throughout the broader Center East. Iran now enriches uranium to near-weapons-grade ranges whereas having a big sufficient stockpile to construct a number of bombs if it selected.
That, coupled with the bloody crackdown on dissent that adopted nationwide protests over Amini’s death and the necessary hijab, have fueled voters’ disenchantment. Pezeshkian has provided feedback suggesting he desires higher relations with the West, a return to the atomic accord and fewer enforcement of the hijab legislation.
Pezeshkian was born Sept. 29, 1954, in Mahabad in northwestern Iran to an Azeri father and a Kurdish mom. He speaks Azeri and has lengthy centered on the affairs of Iran’s huge minority ethnic teams. Like many, he served within the Iran-Iraq struggle, sending medical groups to the battlefront.
He turned a coronary heart surgeon and served as the pinnacle of the Tabriz College of Medical Sciences. Nevertheless, private tragedy formed his life after a 1994 automotive crash killed his spouse, Fatemeh Majidi, and a daughter. The physician by no means remarried and raised his remaining two sons and a daughter alone.
Pezeshkian entered politics first because the nation’s deputy well being minister and later because the well being minister below the administration of reformist President Mohammad Khatami.
Virtually instantly, he discovered himself concerned within the wrestle between hard-liners and reformists, attending the post-mortem of Zahra Kazemi, a contract photographer who held each Canadian and Iranian citizenship. She was detained whereas taking footage at a protest at Tehran’s infamous Evin Jail, was tortured and died in custody.
In 2006, Pezeshkian was elected as a lawmaker representing Tabriz. He later served as a deputy parliament speaker and backed reformist and reasonable causes, although analysts typically described him extra as an “unbiased” than allied with the voting blocs. That unbiased label additionally has been embraced by Pezeshkian within the marketing campaign.
But Pezeshkian on the identical time honored Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, on one event carrying its uniform to parliament. He repeatedly criticized the US and praised the Guard for taking pictures down an American drone in 2019, saying it “delivered a powerful punch within the mouth of the Individuals and proved to them that our nation won’t give up.”
In 2011, Pezeshkian registered to run for president, however withdrew his candidacy. In 2021, he discovered himself and different outstanding candidates barred from working by authorities, permitting a simple win for Raisi.
On this marketing campaign, Pezeshkian’s advocates have sought to distinction him in opposition to the “Taliban” insurance policies of Jalili. His marketing campaign slogan is “For Iran,” a potential play on the favored music by the Grammy Awarding-winning Iranian singer-songwriter Shervin Hajipour referred to as “Baraye,” or “For” in English. Hajipour has been sentenced to greater than three years in jail over his anthem for the Amini protests.
But Pezeshkian acknowledged the problem forward of him, notably after the low turnout of the primary spherical of voting.
“With all of the noisy arguments between me and him, solely 40 p.c (of eligible voters) voted,” Pezeshkian mentioned throughout his closing televised debate with Jalili on Tuesday. “Sixty p.c don’t settle for us. So individuals have points with us.”
