The country’s run-off presidential election has been won by the low-key moderate Masoud Pezeshkian, who has promised to open Iran to the outside world and bring about the freedoms that its people have long desired for, the interior ministry announced on Saturday.
It declared that Pezeshkian had won the majority of Friday’s votes, making him the country’s new president.
About half of the candidates entered the contest, including Pezeshkian, the only moderate among the four initial contenders, and hardline former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, who is adamant about strengthening relations with China and Russia.
Following the death of Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash, June 28’s snap election saw record low turnout, with over 60% of Iranian voters abstaining. This was followed by the run-off election on Friday.
Social media posts featured footage of Pezeshkian’s fans dancing on the streets of numerous cities and towns around the nation, as well as drivers blowing their horns in celebration of his win.
Witnesses reported that residents of Pezeshkian’s hometown of Urmia, in northwest Armenia, were giving out candy on the streets.
Although the election is not anticipated to have much of an impact on the policies of the Islamic Republic, the president will play a significant role in choosing the next Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is 85 years old and makes all of the decisions regarding important matters of state.
Over the past four years, voter turnout has drastically decreased, which detractors claim highlights how public unhappiness over economic hardship and restrictions on political and social freedoms has weakened support for clerical authority.
In the 2021 election that installed Raisi, just 48% of voters cast ballots; in the March parliamentary election, 41% of voters participated.
The election takes place at a time when tensions in the Middle East are rising as a result of the conflict between Israel and its supporters, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and growing pressure from the West on Iran over its rapidly developing nuclear enrichment program.
Although it is unlikely that the next president will significantly alter Iran’s nuclear program or cease funding militias throughout the Middle East, he will still be in charge of the government on a day-to-day basis and have the power to shape the country’s foreign and domestic policies.
devoted competitors
According to experts, a victory for Pezeshkian may advance a practical foreign policy, reduce anxiety about the currently-stalled talks with major countries to resurrect a 2015 nuclear agreement, and enhance the likelihood of social liberalization and political pluralism.
Pezeshkian’s capacity to carry out his campaign promises, however, has been met with skepticism from voters due to his public declaration that he had no intention of taking on Iran’s powerful clerics and security hawks.
“This morning, I cast my vote for Pezeshkian; I did not do so last week. Although I am aware that Pezeshkian will be a weak president, Afarin, 37, who owns a beauty salon in Isfahan’s central district, nevertheless thinks he is preferable to a hardliner.
The harsh official crackdown that resulted in mass detentions and even executions of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian-Kurdish woman, in 2022, caused widespread unrest that many Iranians still remember with grief.
“I refuse to cast a ballot. Because of Mahsa (Amini), the Islamic Republic must reject this. “I desire a free nation and a free existence,” 19-year-old Sepideh, a university student in Tehran, declared.
Since last week, the social media platform X has seen a significant increase in the use of the hashtag #ElectionCircus. Domestic and international activists have advocated for a boycott of the election, claiming that a large turnout would validate the Islamic Republic.
Both candidates have pledged to turn around the faltering economy, which has been plagued by bad leadership, official corruption, and sanctions that have been reinstated since 2018 when the US, then-President Donald Trump, pulled out of the nuclear agreement.
I’ll cast my vote for Jalili. He adheres to Islamic principles. In the northern city of Sari, retired employee Mahmoud Hamidzadegan, 64, remarked, “He has promised to end our economic hardships.”
