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After the 2022 demise 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 taken by Mr Pezeshkian, now Iran’s 69-year-old president-elect, spotlight the dualities of being a reformist politician inside Iran’s Shia theocracy – all the time pushing for change however by no means radically difficult the system overseen by supreme chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran’s inside ministry mentioned on Saturday: “By gaining a majority of the votes forged on Friday, Pezeshkian has develop into Iran’s subsequent president.”
After Iran’s 28 June presidential election noticed the bottom turnout in historical past, Mr Pezeshkian received 16.3 million votes in opposition to hardliner Saeed Jalili’s 13.5 million votes to clinch Friday’s runoff election. Mr Pezeshkian now should persuade a public angered by years of financial ache and bloody crackdowns that he could make the adjustments he promised.
“We’re dropping our backing within the society, due to our conduct, excessive costs, our therapy of ladies and since we censor the web,” Mr Pezeshkian mentioned at a televised debate on Monday night time. “Persons are discontent with us due to our behaviour.”
Mr Pezeshkian has aligned himself with different average and reformist figures throughout his marketing campaign to switch the late President Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline protégé of Khamenei killed in a helicopter crash in Might. His important advocate has been former overseas minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who reached Iran’s 2015 nuclear take care of world powers that noticed sanctions lifted in change for the atomic programme being drastically curtailed.
Iranians 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 sequence 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 chooses.
That, coupled with the bloody crackdown on dissent that adopted nationwide protests over Amini’s demise and the obligatory hijab, have fueled voters’ disenchantment. Mr Pezeshkian has supplied feedback suggesting he desires higher relations with the West, a return to the atomic accord and fewer enforcement of the hijab regulation.
Mr Pezeshkian was born 29 September 1954 in Mahabad in northwestern Iran to an Azeri father and a Kurdish mom. He speaks Azeri and has lengthy targeted 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 grew to become a coronary heart surgeon and served as the pinnacle of the Tabriz College of Medical Sciences. Nonetheless, 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.
Mr 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.
Nearly instantly, he discovered himself concerned within the battle between hardliners and reformists, attending the post-mortem of Zahra Kazemi, a contract photographer who held each Canadian and Iranian citizenship. She was detained whereas taking photos at a protest at Tehran’s infamous Evin Jail, was tortured and died in custody.
In 2006, Mr Pezeshkian was elected as a lawmaker representing Tabriz. He later served as a deputy parliament speaker and backed reformist and average causes, although analysts typically described him extra as an “unbiased” than allied with the voting blocs. That unbiased label additionally has been embraced by Mr Pezeshkian within the marketing campaign.
But Mr Pezeshkian on the identical time honored Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, on one event sporting its uniform to parliament. He repeatedly criticized america and praised the guard for capturing 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 is not going to give up”.
In 2011, Mr 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 straightforward win for Mr Raisi.
On this marketing campaign, Mr Pezeshkian’s advocates have sought to distinction him in opposition to the “Taliban” insurance policies of Mr Jalili. His marketing campaign slogan is “For Iran”, a potential play on the favored tune by the Grammy Awarding-winning Iranian singer-songwriter Shervin Hajipour known 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 Mr 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 per cent (of eligible voters) voted,” Mr Pezeshkian mentioned throughout his last televised debate with Mr Jalili on Tuesday. “Sixty per cent don’t settle for us. So individuals have points with us.”
Extra reporting by Reuters
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