Reformist
candidate Masoud Pezeshkian won Iran’s runoff presidential election
Saturday, besting hard-liner Saeed Jalili by promising to reach out to the West
and ease enforcement on the country’s mandatory headscarf law after years of
sanctions and protests squeezing the Islamic Republic.
Pezeshkian
promised no radical changes to Iran’s Shiite theocracy in his campaign and long
has held Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the final arbiter of all
matters of state in the country. But even Pezeshkian’s modest aims will be
challenged by an Iranian government still largely held by hard-liners,
the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, and Western fears
over Tehran enriching uranium to near-weapons-grade levels.
A
vote count offered by authorities put Pezeshkian as the winner with 16.3
million votes to Jalili’s 13.5 million in Friday’s election. Overall, Iran’s
Interior Ministry said 30 million people voted in an election held without
internationally recognized monitors.
Supporters of Pezeshkian, a heart
surgeon and longtime lawmaker, entered the streets of Tehran and other cities
before dawn to celebrate as his lead grew over Jalili, a
hard-line former nuclear negotiator.
But
Pezeshkian’s win still sees Iran at a delicate moment, with tensions high in
the Mideast over the Israel-Hamas war, Iran’s advancing nuclear program, and a looming election in
the United States that could put any chance of a detente between Tehran and
Washington at risk. Pezeshkian’s victory also wasn’t a rout of Jalili, meaning
he’ll have to carefully navigate Iran’s internal politics as the doctor has
never held a sensitive, high-level security post.
turnout
as a sign of support for the country’s Shiite theocracy, which has been under
strain after years of sanctions crushing Iran’s economy, mass demonstrations
and intense crackdowns on all dissent.
Government
officials up to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei predicted a higher participation rate as voting got
underway, with state television airing images of modest lines at some polling
centers across the country.
However,
online videos purported to show some polls empty while a survey of several
dozen sites in the capital, Tehran, saw light traffic amid a heavy security
presence on the streets.
Authorities
put the turnout in Friday’s election at 49.6%, still historically low for an
Iranian presidential election. They counted 607,575 voided votes in the contest
— which often are a sign of protest by those who feel obligated to cast a
ballot but reject both candidates.
The
election came amid heightened regional tensions. In April, Iran launched its first-ever direct attack on Israel over
the war in Gaza, while militia groups that Tehran arms in the region — such as
the Lebanese Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels — are engaged in the fighting
and have escalated their attacks.
Iran
is also enriching uranium at near weapons-grade levels and
maintains a stockpile large enough to build several nuclear weapons, should it
choose to do so. And while Khamenei remains the final decision-maker on matters
of state, whichever man ends up winning the presidency could bend the country’s
foreign policy toward either confrontation or collaboration with the West.
The
campaign also repeatedly touched on what would happen if former President
Donald Trump, who unilaterally withdrew America from the Iran nuclear deal in
2018, won the November election. Iran has held indirect talks with President
Joe Biden’s administration, though there’s been no clear movement back toward
constraining Tehran’s nuclear program for the lifting of economic sanctions.
Though
identifying with reformists and relative moderates within Iran’s theocracy
during the campaign, Pezeshkian at the same time honored Iran’s paramilitary
Revolutionary Guard, on one occasion wearing its uniform to parliament. He
repeatedly criticized the United States and praised the Guard for shooting down
an American drone in 2019, saying it “delivered a strong punch in the mouth of
the Americans and proved to them that our country will not surrender.”
More
than 61 million Iranians over the age of 18 were eligible to vote, with about
18 million of them between 18 and 30. Voting was to end at 6 p.m. but was
extended until midnight to boost participation.
The late President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a May helicopter crash, was seen as a protégé of Khamenei and a potential successor as supreme leader.
Still, many knew him for his involvement in the mass executions that Iran conducted in 1988, and for his role in the bloody crackdowns on dissent that followed protests over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman detained by police over allegedly improperly wearing the mandatory headscarf, or hijab.