A relatively moderate member of the Iranian parliament, Masoud Pezeshkian has been declared the next president of Iran after beating his hardline conservative rival by a decisive margin in Friday’s run-off presidential elections.
The 69-year-old will replace Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash last month.
Mr Pezeshkian’s mostly young supporters took to the streets of the capital, Tehran, and other cities to celebrate – even before the final results were declared, singing, dancing and waving his campaign’s signature green flags.
He has given some of the nation’s younger generation hope at a time when many were despondent about their future. Some were even planning to leave the country to seek a better life elsewhere.
Representing the city of Tabriz in the Iranian parliament since 2008, he has previously served as the country’s heath minister.
In the 1990s, he lost his wife and one of his children in a car accident. He never remarried and raised his other three children – two sons and a daughter – alone.
His win has upset the plans of the Islamic hardliners, who hoped to install another conservative to replace Raisi and – alongside supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – control all of Iran’s levers of power.
At a polling station in Tehran, 48-year-old Fatemeh told the AFP news agency she had voted for the moderate as his “priorities include women and young people’s rights”.
Afarin, 37, who owns a beauty salon in Isfahan, told Reuters: “I know Pezeshkian will be a lame-duck president, but still he is better than a hardliner.”
Many voters boycotted the first round of voting last week – angry at repression at home and international confrontation which has brought Iran increased sanctions and expanding poverty.
They were also frustrated by the lack of choice in the elections – of the six candidates who were allowed to run, five were hardline Islamists.
And there was a sense of despair that – with Ayatollah Khamenei having final say over government policy – there is little chance of real change.
But in the run-off election on Friday, some seem to have changed their mind and turned out at polling stations, many voting tactically for Mr Pezeshkian in order to block victory for Mr Jalili.
He would have reaffirmed many policies that have been the subject of both domestic and international discontent, such as Iran’s controversial morality police patrols.
Mr Jalili took an anti-Western stance during his campaign and criticised the 2015 deal that saw Iran curb its nuclear programme in exchange for eased sanctions. Voters were concerned that if he won, his presidency may have antagonised the US and its regional allies – and worsened Iran’s economic situation.
By comparison, Mr Pezeshkian has called for “constructive relations” with Western nations, and to revive the nuclear deal to “get Iran out of its isolation”. He has said that Iran’s economy cannot function with the crippling sanctions currently placed on it.
A win for Mr Jalili would have also signalled a shift to a potentially harsher domestic policy, reinforcing the requirement for women to wear a headscarf.
Mr Pezeshkian is against using force to impose the compulsory hijab rule – a major issue in the past few years.
He has previously lamented the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a young women who had been arrested for an alleged violation of the law. Her death sparked massive nation-wide protests, unlike any the country had ever seen.
The president-elect is expected to take the reins of power in a matter of days to fill the void in government left by Raisi’s sudden death.
As well as pushing to revive the nuclear deal and ease sanctions, Mr Pezeshkian has promised to see Iran join international banking conventions. Conservatives have been reluctant to do so, depriving Iran of normal banking relations with other nations.
He has also said he will remove Iran’s extensive internet censors.
But it is unclear how much political freedom he will be given to bring about meaningful change.
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