ATHENS, Greece: Iran reformist Masoud Pezeshkian’s victory over his hardline rival Saeed Jalili in the country’s presidential runoff on Saturday offers Iranians desperate for change a sliver of hope, according to political observers.

While many Iranians are too disillusioned with their government to feel optimistic, some believe Pezeshkian’s win points to the possibility of reform in the midst of economic turmoil, corruption, and crackdowns on dissent.

The first round of elections began on June 28, just over a month after President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash.

However, the election failed to generate more than 50 percent of votes for any candidate, with the lowest turnout since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Videos circulating on social media platforms, including X, showed almost empty polling stations across the country.

“How can you, while holding a sword, gallows, weapons, and prisons against the people with one hand, place a ballot box in front of the same people with the other hand, and deceitfully and falsely call them to the polls?” Narges Mohammadi, the imprisoned Iranian human rights activist and Nobel laureate, said in a statement from Evin Prison.

BIO

• Name: Masoud Pezeshkian
• Year of birth: 1954
• City of birth: Mahabad, Iran
• Occupation: Heart surgeon

The underwhelming turnout is part of a trend that began four years ago with the country’s 2020 parliamentary election, according to Ali Vaez, Iran Project director at the International Crisis Group (ICG).

“This clearly shows that the majority of the Iranian people have given up on the ballot box as a viable vehicle for change,” he told Arab News.

“The head-to-head between Jalili and Pezeshkian in the second round was a contest between two opposite ends of the spectrum acceptable to the system: Jalili’s hard-line, ideological approach and Pezeshkian’s moderate, liberal stance created intense polarization, seemingly driving a higher voter turnout. Jalili embodies confrontational foreign policy and restrictive social policies, while Pezeshkian advocates for moderate reforms and diplomatic engagement.”

Political analysts voiced cautious optimism in the wake of Pezeshkian’s victory.

“Pezeshkian prevailed in an election where just 50 percent of voters went to the polls. He lacks the mandate enjoyed by Iran’s previous reform-minded presidents. But boycotting is what made his candidacy possible,” Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, founder and CEO of the UK-based Bourse & Bazaar Foundation think tank, said on X on Saturday.

“Both voters and non-voters had an influence on this remarkable outcome. The turnout was high enough to push Pezeshkian into office, but low enough to deny the (Iranian regime) legitimacy and to maintain political pressure for more significant change.”

Some Iranians have said that while they do not have any great expectations for Pezeshkian’s governance, their decision to vote for him was motivated by the desire for change, however small.

“The reason for my vote is not that I have any special hopes for his government, no. I voted because I believe that society’s explosive desire for change is now so strong and ready to erupt that even if a small opportunity is provided, society itself … will change many things for the better,” Iranian journalist and Sadra Mohaqeq, who voted for Pezeshkian, said on Friday.

Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon whose political career includes a tenure as the Iranian health minister, will be the first reformist to assume the office of president in Iran since 2005. His promises include efforts to improve relations with the West and a relaxation of Iran’s mandatory headscarf law.

With both Azeri and Kurdish roots, he also supports the rights of minorities in Iran. Minority groups often bore the brunt of state-sanctioned violence in the wake of the 2022-2023 protests sparked by the death of Mahsa (Jina) Amini in police custody. 

After Amini’s death, Pezeshkian said that it was “unacceptable in the Islamic Republic to arrest a girl for her hijab and then hand over her dead body to her family.”

However, just days later, amid nationwide protests and brutal crackdowns by the government, he warned protesters against “insulting the supreme leader.” For even the most optimistic of Iran observers, it is clear that Pezeshkian still answers to the country’s head of state.

“Despite being a reformist, Pezeshkian is loyal to the supreme leader of Iran, and reformists in Iran generally cannot pursue reforms that challenge the vision, goals, and values of the Islamic Revolution. The ultimate authority doesn’t rest with President-elect Pezeshkian but with (Supreme Leader Ali) Khamenei,” Mohammed Albasha, senior Middle East analyst for the US-based Navanti Group, told Arab News.

Furthermore, even if Pezeshkian proves willing to strongly push for reforms, the Iranian political environment is still dominated by hardliners.

Vaez said: “Given Pezeshkian’s relatively low votes, the continued conservative dominance of other state institutions, and the limits of presidential authority, Pezeshkian will face an uphill battle in securing the greater social and cultural rights at home and diplomatic engagement abroad he’s emphasized in debates and on the campaign trail.”

While Pezeshkian has expressed support for domestic reforms and improved international relations, he has also voiced his unequivocal support for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

He has condemned the former Trump administration’s decision to label the IRGC as a terrorist organization and has worn the IRGC uniform in public meetings. 

It is unclear how Pezeshkian will reconcile a desire for ties with the West with his views, particularly given that the IRGC has been designated as a terrorist group by the US, Sweden, and Canada.

An increased push for improved ties with the West may also draw the ire of the Islamic Republic’s strongest military and economic allies, such as China and Russia. 

However, Pezeshkian may not have much choice in the matter, regardless of his own aspirations.

“The president in Tehran is primarily responsible for implementing the daily agenda, not setting it. Nuclear policy, regional alliances, and relations with the West are dictated by the supreme leader and the Revolutionary Guard,” the Navanti Group’s Albasha said.

Though not the head of state, Pezeshkian will undoubtedly have some influence over Iran’s domestic and foreign policies, as well as economic policy.

The government of Iran’s last reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, was characterized by some liberalization, including freedom of expression, a free market economy, and improved diplomatic relations with other countries.

Only time will tell how much change Pezeshkian is willing, or able, to bring about.

Pezeshkian’s election win is not a turning point, ICG’s Vaez said, but “another twist in the complex political dynamics of a system that remains split between those who want the 1979 revolution to mellow and those who want it to remain permanent.”
 

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: The Hamas authorities in Gaza said an Israeli strike on Saturday on a UN-run school where thousands of displaced were sheltering killed 16 people.
Israel’s military said its aircraft had targeted “terrorists” operating around the Al-Jawni school in Nuseirat, central Gaza.
The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which condemned the strike as an “odious massacre,” said 50 injured were taken to hospital from the school.
Some 7,000 people were sheltering in the school at the time of the attack, the Hamas government press office said. Dozens of people scrambled through the rubble after the strike to find survivors.
The press office said the school was run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, and most of the casualties were “children, women, and elderly.”
“This is the fourth time they have targeted the school without warning,” said one woman, Samah Abu Amsha, who told how some children were killed as they read the Qur’an in a class when the missile hit.
“Shrapnel flew at me inside the classroom and the children were injured,” she told AFP.
Hamas called the attack “a new massacre and crime committed by this criminal enemy as part of its war of genocide against our Palestinian people.”
The Israeli military said in a statement it “struck several terrorists operating in structures located in the area of UNRWA’s Al-Jawni school.”
“This location served as a hideout and operational infrastructure from which attacks against IDF troops operating in the Gaza Strip were directed and carried out,” it added, insisting that “steps were taken in order to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.”
Israel has agreed to meetings with mediators on a ceasefire initiative but has kept up its offensive in the territory that started on October 7 after the Hamas attack on southern Israel.
UNRWA said two of its workers were killed in a strike at Al-Bureij, also in central Gaza, early Saturday. The agency has a major food warehouse in the district.
The Al-Aqsa hospital said nine other bodies were brought to its morgue from the strike.
The UN agency said 194 of its workers have now been killed since the war started.
An UNRWA spokesperson said that since the war began, more than half of the agency’s facilities have been hit and many were shelters. “As a result at least 500 people sheltering in those facilities have been killed,” the spokesperson told AFP.
Paramedics said 10 people, including three journalists, died in another strike on a house in Nuseirat on Saturday.
“Absolutely no place in the Gaza Strip is safe,” said civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal.
The war began with the October 7 attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Hamas militants also seized hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza including 42 the military says are dead.
In response, Israel has carried out a military offensive that has killed at least 38,098 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas-run health ministry there.