The Iranian presidential elections will be decided on July 5th between the reformist candidates, Masoud Pezeshkian, and the hardline conservative, Saeed Jalili, after they topped the first round, which was characterized by the weakest turnout since the establishment of the republic in 1979.
A spokesman for the Iranian Presidential Elections Commission announced, on Saturday, that a runoff round would be held, on Friday, July 5, between Masoud Pezeshkian, who received more than 10 million and 400 thousand votes, and Saeed Jalili, who received about 9 million and 473 thousand votes, after counting more than 10 million 400 thousand votes. From 24 million and 535 thousand ballot papers.
Pezeshkian, who was almost unknown when he entered the presidential race, won 42.5% of the vote on Friday, ahead of Jalili, who won 38.6% of the vote in the first round of the presidential election. But who are Pezeshkian and Jalili?
“A reformist calls for openness”
No one expected that Masoud Pezeshkian, the parliamentary representative for Tabriz Pezeshkian, the largest city in northwestern Iran, would be able to achieve this result when the Guardian Council accepted his request to run with 5 other candidates, all conservatives, for the early elections that were scheduled to be organized after the death of President Ibrahim. Major in a helicopter crash.
Born on September 29, 1954 in Mahabad, West Azerbaijan Province, Pezeshkian speaks Azeri and Kurdish, which gives him an incentive to defend minorities, but he was not a prominent figure in the reformist and moderate camp, whose influence in the face of conservatives has declined in recent years.
Pezeshkian, a doctor specializing in heart surgery, emerged as “a prominent figure in the presidential race, thanks to his unique speech, his status as a new candidate, and the support of reformists, which contributed to his appeal,” according to the Iran Wire website.
The reformist candidate has never been “involved in corruption cases,” according to the Iranian website, which noted that opinions within the medical community are divided about him, as some reformist doctors disagree with him, while some conservatives support him.
But the man managed to win the support of the reformist camp, especially the support of former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani, as well as former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, the architect of the nuclear agreement reached with major international powers in 2015.
Since the start of the election campaign, Pezeshkian has shown humility, whether in his appearance, as he often contented himself with wearing a plain jacket, or in his speeches, which were devoid of any exaggeration or grand promises.
A single-parent who raised three children after his wife and one of his sons died in a car accident in 1993, he considers himself “the voice of the voiceless”, while he has pledged, if elected president, to work to improve the living conditions of the most deprived groups.
Compared to his opponents, this surgeon’s government experience remains limited, as it is limited to his assuming the health portfolio in Khatami’s reform government during the period from 2001 to 2005.
In 2003, Parliament unsuccessfully tried to impeach him, citing incompetence in his appointments, inappropriate use of loans, and other issues. Later, Pezeshkian was elected to Parliament, and rose to become Deputy Speaker of Parliament.
Since 2008, Pezeshkian has represented the city of Tabriz in Parliament and has become known for his criticism of the government, especially during the widespread protest movement sparked by the death of the young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in September 2022 after she was arrested for not adhering to Iran’s strict dress code.
After the 2009 presidential election and the protests that followed, Pezeshkian’s speech criticizing the behavior toward protesters disrupted a parliament session for a few minutes.
“Don’t kill people like wild animals,” Pezeshkian said in his speech, referring to the crackdowns that met the protests. “When you can, don’t intervene sharply, don’t hit, don’t hit,” he added.
Since the start of the election campaign, Pezeshkian has been calling for improving relations between Iran and Western countries, led by the United States, with the aim of reaching the lifting of sanctions that are severely harming the economy. He also says: “We will not be hostile to either the West or the East,” hoping that Iran will emerge from its “isolation.” .
The reformist candidate also pledged to engage in direct negotiations with Washington to revive talks on Iran’s nuclear program, which have been stalled since the United States withdrew from the international agreement in 2018, three years after it was signed.
Pezeshkian stresses, “If we achieve the lifting of American sanctions, people’s lives will be more comfortable.”
On the domestic front, if he wins the presidency, he will seek to put an end to the “differences” between the political forces, which he says are the “main cause of the country’s problems.”
On the other hand, Bezeshkian denounces the police’s use of violence to enforce the mandatory hijab, expressing his opposition to “any violent and inhumane behavior, including toward our sisters and daughters, and we will not allow such actions,” he said.
In 2022, he previously denounced the lack of transparency on the part of the authorities in the case of Amini, who was detained in custody after being arrested by the morality police on charges of violating the strict dress code imposed on women.
“A hardline conservative and a fierce opponent of the West”
In contrast, his rival, Saeed Jalili, the hardline conservative candidate who qualified for the second round of the Iranian presidential elections, is a fierce opponent of any rapprochement between Iran and the West, and his supporters often chant during his election rallies, “No compromise, no surrender” in the face of the United States and Western countries.
Jalili, 58 years old, who is involved in the diplomatic corps, is working to bring the conservative camp together to defeat Pezeshkian, and the man who has chosen to stay away from the limelight is also seeking to convince himself that he is best suited to run the government, following the guidelines set by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in the country.
Saeed Jalili was born in the city of Mashhad (northeastern Iran) on September 6, 1965. He grew up in a pious, middle-class family, and was known for managing the nuclear file negotiations between 2007 and 2013, according to Agence France-Presse.
Local media have cemented his image as a “tough negotiator” against the West, which is primarily concerned about Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons.
In 2015, Saeed Jalili strongly criticized the nuclear agreement concluded during the era of moderate President Hassan Rouhani (2013-2021), as he considered that it “violated Tehran’s red lines” while accepting “uncharacteristic inspections” of Iranian nuclear sites.”
The Iranian website “Ruwaidad24” pointed out that Jalili’s resistance to making concessions and his strict approach led to the UN Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s governors taking several decisions against Iran, leading to the imposition of international economic sanctions that undermined the relative stability of the Iranian oil-dependent economy.
Negotiations on the nuclear file are currently stalled, especially after the negative impact of the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from it during the era of former President Donald Trump in 2018.
During his career, Jalili held key positions in the republic due to the Supreme Leader’s confidence in him. At the beginning of the third millennium, the man who holds a doctorate in political science and whose thesis centered on “Foreign Affairs in the Life of the Prophet” joined the office of the Supreme Leader, where he was assigned to prepare reports in the strategic field.
During his school years, he fought on the front lines in the war between Iran and Iraq (1980-1988) and suffered a foot injury that led to its amputation.
After Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005, Jalili was appointed Deputy Foreign Minister in charge of European and South American affairs.
He is currently one of Khamenei’s two representatives on the Supreme National Security Council, the country’s top security body.
On the electoral front, he previously ran for president in 2013, where he came in third with 11% of the vote. In 2017 and 2021, he withdrew from the presidential race in support of Ebrahim Raisi.