The victory of Masoud Pezeshkian, a former heart surgeon who stood as a “reformist” in the run-off of Iran’s presidential election, offers a glimmer of hope to millions of Iranian women and impatient young people that the stifling dominance of hard-liners might be ending. It is only a glimmer, however. Dr Pezeshkian was allowed to stand in the election to replace Ebrahim Raisi, the hardliner killed in a helicopter crash, only because Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the 85-year-old supreme leader and controlling power in Iran, was desperate to boost the turn-out for the vote. It is no carte blanche for reformist policies or a general liberalisation, and will make little difference to Iran’s policies in the region or relations with the West.
Hopes that Dr Pezeshkian would nevertheless prove a pragmatist who could, as he promised, control the excesses of the so-called morality police boosted his support. Fifty per cent of the population went to the polls, compared to the derisory 40 per cent who voted in the first round. The theocratic authorities were desperate to counter the calls for a boycott by the fragmented opposition and reassert the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic. The Guardian Council, the conservative body vetting all candidates, normally excludes anyone who is not slavish in support of the hardline clerical authorities. It was clearly satisfied that Dr Pezeshkian, who as a legislator from western Iran has honoured the powerful Revolutionary Guard, criticised the United States and praised the shooting down of an American drone in 2019, was sufficiently loyal to the Ayatollah’s policies.
His supporters will now be hoping, at the least, for some easing of the draconian enforcement of the laws mandating the wearing of the hijab for all women. It was the arrest of a woman deemed not to have worn hers correctly and her subsequent death in custody that in 2022 triggered the biggest protests seen in Iran since the 1979 Islamist revolution. This protest, led largely but not only by women, revealed the depths of seething discontent with a regime that has kept Iran almost a global pariah and thwarted the ambitions of a younger generation angered by the widespread corruption of the controlling Revolutionary Guard.
There is only so much Dr Pezeshkian can do, however. He will find himself thwarted by hardliners at every turn. He promised during his campaign to improve Iran’s icy relations with the West. But even if he hopes to revive the moribund negotiations over Iran’s nuclear research programme, he will find that foreign policy is largely determined by Khamenei. He also will have little say in whether Iran should moderate its support for the Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping from southern Yemen or for Hezbollah, Iran’s proxies in Lebanon, at a time when conflict with Israel on the Lebanese border threatens to escalate.
Dr Pezeshkian may, however, be less willing to identify Tehran so closely with Russia and China and seek some possible openings to the West. But it will be in domestic policy where he will be judged within Iran. Much remains beyond his control, especially the poverty and growing frustration of farmers and those living outside urban areas. If he can nevertheless reflect some of the ethnic and religious diversity of his homeland in western Iran and translate this into a more open approach to politics, he may find he can fulfil some of his promises. It will be in the teeth of hardline opposition. Disappointment is perhaps inevitable.
