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A moderate reformer came in first place at the polls of the Iranian presidential elections amid record-low turnout, beating five other conservative, hardline candidates.
A total of 24,535,185 votes were cast, representing 40% turnout from the over 61 million eligible voters; a 10% drop in voter participation from 2021.
Masoud Pezeshkian took 42.35%, or 10.4 million votes. The 70-year-old cardiologist was a surprise inclusion on the approved candidates list from the Guardian Council, the Islamic Republic’s body that dictates who will run for election. 80 candidates registered, and the council approved 6.
Pezeshkian’s opponent, the conservative Saeed Jalili, won 38.5% of the vote, and from there the other candidates tailed off considerably.
Because no candidate got over 50% of the vote outright, the race will go into the second round this Sunday, only the second time in the country’s history that a presidential election has gone to a run-off.
Pezeshkian has represented his home of Tabriz in parliament since 2008, while serving a term as health minister in the administration of Mohammad Khatami, a moderate reformer, from 1997 to 2005.
He has been endorsed by various members of the moderate reformer factions, including former vice-president Is’haq Jahangiri, who described the cardiologist and presidential hopeful as “the epitome of sincerity, assertiveness, courage, and moral living”.
A Zagros Mountain to climb
Pezeshkian faces an even more significant challenge than in the first round, when he was believed to represent a return to the conciliatory framework of Hassan Rouhani, the moderate president who signed the JCPOA, known shorthand as the Iranian nuclear deal, with President Obama.
This legacy was deeply tarnished as Rouhani and the Iranian conservative hardliners watched Donald Trump take office, withdraw the US from the treaty, and reimpose crippling sanctions, all while the European signees did nothing to hold up their commitments to the treaty that ensured Iranian oil exports could find buyers in Europe in the case of US sanctions.
Rouhani was replaced by the conservative right-wing Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed along with his foreign minister and 6 others in a helicopter crash in April that led to the elections taking place at this time.
Despite this association with failure and the sanctions that have so disrupted the nation’s economy for the last 6 years, in the first round Pezeshkian stood alone as a vote for a reformer, whilst the conservative vote was split between five candidates, including men like cleric Mostafa Pourmohammadi, who was part of the so-called “death committee” that oversaw the execution of 4,000 political prisoners in the wake of the 1981 Revolution, and who took fourth place in the election.
But with a gap of only 4% and about 950,000 votes, Pezeshkian has few places to look for additional votes, while Jalili now carries the sole banner for conservatism. Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, the third-place finisher, has already thrown his direct support to Jalili, instructing some 3.4 million people who voted for him to return to the polls on July 7th and vote for Jalili. The fifth and sixth place finishers also issued statements of support for Jalili.
In a previous article, WaL reported that every moderate victory in Iranian presidential elections since the Revolution has come during elections with a high voter turnout. Being that June 28th saw record-low turnout, Pezeshkian’s best hope is perhaps to appeal to those who remained on the sidelines.
Principle issues for voters remain the terrible state of the economy, inflation, and a stagnating business environment, cooperation, or distance from, the West, and a variety of cultural issues. WaL
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PICTURED ABOVE: The six approved candidates for the Iranian Presidency, with moderate Pezeshkian seen second from right. PC: graphic retrieved from Tehran Times.
