Written by Michael Thervil
Photo by Al-Jazeera
Saturday July 6, 2024, is the day that the citizens of Iran elected 71-year-old Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian (Heart Surgeon) as its new president in its 2nd round of elections. The first round of the election which was held on June 28th, had a very low voter turnout resulting in only 40% of Iranians going to the poles. The reason for that was because many Iranian citizens were protesting the elections because they felt that there wouldn’t be any real change manifested regardless of the political candidate they voted for. In contrast, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, believes the boycott was nothing more than a failed campaign concocted by Iran’s enemies.
This election occurred within the mandatory 50 days following the death of Iran’s previous president Ebrahim Raisi who was killed in a helicopter crash on May 19th, 2024. Many political figures and leaders around the world congratulated him on his win for the exception of America and the Collective West. It was a fierce faceoff between the then Doctor. now President Masoud Pezeshkian (Reformist) and Saeed Jalili whose political affiliation Is the Front of Islamic Revolution Endurance; with the newly elected president securing 53.3% of Iranian voters to Saeed Jalili 44.3%.
Although the political candidates both shared many of the same viewpoints, it was Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian who won because he didn’t believe in maintaining the previous geo-political status quo keeping in step with his title as a “Reformist”. Another thing that aided him in securing his presidential victory was that he disapproved of the Iranian Morality Police (Gasht-e Ershad) in the country. This is significant given the death of an Iranian woman by the name of Mahsa Amini who was arrested and ultimately killed while in police custody for not adhering to hijab wearing standards in Iran on September 16th, 2022.
But there was another element that also played a part in his recent victory and that was because Iranian citizens just didn’t want Saeed Jalili to become the president of Iran due to his position on maintaining an anti-western stance as well as his vision of restoring the nuclear deal with the red lines that he perceived nations like America crossed in conjunction with other conservative values. It appears that the vast majority of Iranians are seeking to move past the notion of conservatism and are more into opening up lines of communication and establishing positive relations with the rest of the world to include the West. Now whether or not America and the Collective West chooses to reciprocate the same willingness to more forward geo-politically, is another matter altogether.
The issue for President Masoud Pezeshkian may not necessarily come from external politics; instead, it's predicted that the true battle he will face will come from internal politics between him and the Iranian Parliament. The Iranian Parliament consists of conservative hard-liners who may not necessarily be open to his ideas as a reformist. This leads political pundits around the world to wonder if America and the Collective West will attempt to take advantage of that fact and sow the seeds of discord in Iran. The observers of the geopolitical chessboard are watching.
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