Iran has chosen Ebrahim Raisi’s successorkilled in a helicopter crash on May 19. The next president will be the reformist Massoud Pezeshkian, 69, who defeated the ultraconservative Said Jalili, 58, in the second round.
“We will extend the hand of friendship to everyone. We are all people of this country. We will need everyone’s help for the progress” of Iran: Pezeshkian said speaking on state television and thanking his supporters who came to vote “with love and to help” the country.
A doctor of Azerbaijani origin, little known before his candidacy, Pezeshkian raised three children alone after his wife died in an accident. A parliamentarian for two decades, he spoke out against the government’s lack of transparency during the nationwide protests triggered by the death of young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in September 2022. An expert heart surgeon, he served as health minister under former reformist president Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005). He has been outspoken in criticizing the government over the mandatory hijab, but has never called for the repeal of compulsory veiling for women.
He is a supporter of the deal on the Iranian nuclear program (JCPOA) and has promised to improve relations with the United States.accusing his conservative rivals of ruining the economy by not doing enough to revive the JCPOA, from which Trump’s US unilaterally withdrew in 2018, but which had led to the lifting of some sanctions. Pezeshkian was supported by Khatami (who had abstained in the parliamentary elections in March) and former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. While condemning the administration of the late President Ebrahim Raisi as incapable of solving the country’s problems, He never came to openly criticize the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. He also supported the regime’s basic principles, according to which the United States is the main cause of tensions in the region.