Masoud Pezeshkian, a revolutionary candidate and brain surgeon, emerged triumphant in Iran’s discharge presidential election on Saturday. Following a time of restrictions and protests that have strained the Islamic Republic, he pledged to work with the West and ease the country’s mandatory attire rules. Pezeshkian’s player, difficult- coat Saeed Jalili, was defeated in the political battle.
According to Iran’s electoral authority, Pezeshkian won more than 17 million vote, while Jalili won more than 13 million in an election in which roughly 30 million votes were cast. The voter turnout for this poll, which was at traditional lower levels, stood at 49.8 percentage.
Throughout his plan, Pezeshkian refrained from promising any major alterations to Iran’s Shiite dictatorship. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been regarded by him as the supreme authority in all state-related things.
Pezeshkian’s humble goals, however, are likely to face challenges from an Iranian government that is still mostly under the control of hard-liners, the ongoing Israel-Hamas discord in the Gaza Strip, and concerns raised by European concerns about Tehran’s uranium enrichment to near-waffen-grade levels.
In the early days of the day, Pezeshkian’s followers, took to the streets in Tehran and other industrial areas as his advantages over Jalili, a liberal former nuclear communicator, continued to grow.
The participation rate for the first poll on June 28 was the lowest since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in the Islamic Republic’s history. The Iranian government has consistently emphasized that the voter turnout indicates support for the country’s Shiite theocracy, which has been under stress from years of economic sanctions, popular protests, and severe repression of all dissent.
According to the ballot count provided by the government, Pezeshkian secured 16.3 million seats, while Jalili received 13.5 million vote in Friday’s vote.
Ebrahim Raisi, a broadly regarded close friend and mentor of Khamenei, passed away in a plane crash in May, leading to the election. Some people thought Raisi might be being groomed to become a possible successor to the place of supreme leader.
Raisi’s reputation was yet, marred by his involvement in the 1988 mass killings in Iran. Additionally, he significantly contributed to the violent detention of protests that broke out after Mahsa Amini’s death in 2022 was detained for allegedly wearing her hijab poorly.
