A months-old video of Iran’s reform-minded president-elect, Masoud Pezeshkian, surfaced recently, showing the 69-year-old future head of state playing soccer with senior teammates and retired peers. In the footage, Pezeshkian, a cardiologist-turned-politician and former Iranian health minister under the administration of former president Mohammad Khatami, is seen enthusiastically bragging about his football abilities, with passers-by ignoring them altogether. It is a charming and innocent moment—and underscores the extent of the drastic changes that have reshaped Iran in the present.
Roughly seven months after the filming of the clip, Pezeshkian has become the unlikely successor to Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s former president, whose abrupt death in a helicopter crash upended the country’s political situation and precipitated his rise to power. In the special election that followed—Iran’s 14th presidential election since the Islamic Republic’s founding in 1979—Pezeshkian emerged triumphant, narrowly edging out ultraconservative “principlist” candidate Saeed Jalili. After he takes office on July 30, the former footballer will face vastly more complicated challenges than those found on the pitch; his administration must now contend with the complexities of crippling U.S. sanctions and devise a strategy to revitalize Iran’s stagnant economy.
Pezeshkian’s abrupt rise to the presidency would have been impossible without his approval as a candidate by the “Guardian Council,” a body under the supervision of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that vets candidates for the presidency—and ultimately only allows a handful to participate. Pezeshkian was the only member of the “reformist” camp approved by the body; his approval was all the more remarkable considering that the same body had refused him permission to run for a seat in Parliament several months earlier. Crucially, Pezeshkian was the only moderate so chosen; all of the other candidates were identified as principlists, allowing the reformist faction to coalesce behind him and giving him a decisive advantage in the first round of voting.
Against this backdrop, the Islamic Republic held the first round of its early presidential elections on June 28. Although Pezeshkian and his hardline rival Saeed Jalili received the highest number of votes, neither secured the absolute majority required for victory in the first round. A runoff vote took place on July 5, resulting in Pezeshkian narrowly winning power. Despite a meager turnout in the first round—only 39.9 percent of eligible voters, according to the official tally—around half of the nation’s voters cast their ballots in the second round, giving the election popular buy-in and suggesting that a majority of Iranians would support a candidate advocating for genuine reform and change.
Of course, the presidential vote was held in the midst of severe economic challenges. Though the Iranian economy has struggled for decades, the situation worsened significantly after U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 landmark nuclear deal Tehran had signed with six world powers. As the JCPOA unraveled, sanctions that had been lifted in exchange for Iran’s curbs on its disputed nuclear program were reimposed, cutting Iran off from international markets and leading to hyperinflation and severe hardship within the country. After living with the effects of these harsh restrictions for six years, most voters turned to Pezeshkian in the hope that he could alleviate the country’s economic woes.
Despite its flaws, the Iranian economy is far from moribund. According to the latest report from the Statistical Center of Iran (SCI), the country’s economy has sustained positive growth for the fourth consecutive year, with economic growth reported at 5.7 percent in 2023—one of the highest in the Middle East. Inflation remains chronically high: it reached 31.9 percent in May 2024, although this was down from 55.5 percent at the beginning of the preceding Persian calendar year. In short, while economic growth lifted up the nation’s economy, its runaway inflation erased any gains made for ordinary Iranians. Even GDP growth fails to fully explain Iran’s economy; government statistics do little to address the everyday needs of the youth or the poor—nor do they console middle-class Iranians who have seen the cost of living rise many times faster than their paychecks. Consequently, many voters cried for change in the latest presidential election. The pressing question remains: What kind of changes are Iranians most urgently demanding, and what can President-elect Pezeshkian deliver when he enters office?
Pledges of the President
During the campaign season, Pezeshkian outlined several key goals for his future administration. In terms of foreign policy, he clearly stated his aim to work for sanctions to be lifted through engagement with the West. At the same time, he stressed the need for a balance between East and West, ensuring that a rapprochement with the West would not jeopardize Tehran’s positive ties with Moscow and Beijing. To be clear, improving relations with Western countries poses a significant challenge, both from within and without. Pezeshkian will likely encounter significant domestic political opposition to his new foreign policy initiatives. This is to say nothing of potentially negative election results in Europe and North America which could further upend Tehran’s relations with the West. In the United States, former president Trump appears to likely to win re-election in November 2024; any attempt to improve relations between Washington and Tehran during a second Trump presidency would likely be a foregone conclusion.
The flaws in the JCPOA, which helped to doom the agreement in 2018, demonstrated that neither Iran nor the United States viewed the deal as adequate for their own interests. Nevertheless, the deal’s successful negotiation amounted to a rare win in Tehran and Washington’s long history of acrimony, and Pezeshkian aims to revive the JCPOA as the platform for lifting American sanctions. Another challenge is mending ties with the G7’s Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which has blacklisted Iran, causing many countries to refuse banking transactions involving the Islamic Republic.
Domestically, Pezeshkian faces numerous demands that could undermine his mandate. Many of his more liberal supporters hope he will loosen Iran’s strict internet censorship, allowing access to social media platforms like Instagram, Telegram, and Twitter / X. These reforms, however, would encounter significant resistance from conservative Iranian stakeholders and jeopardize Pezeshkian’s position. The president-elect also faces increased pressure to provide increased social freedoms like a relaxation of the controversial hijab laws; but doing so will undoubtedly draw the ire of political and religious conservatives, which dominate the upper echelons of power in Tehran.
Economically, the president-elect has a mountain to climb. The new administration must focus on reining in runaway inflation and addressing energy shortages, which have severely impacted industrial output and soured public opinion. Crucially, the government must also address Iran’s high domestic gasoline consumption, which deprives the government of crucial petrodollars from exports; and its onerous foreign exchange controls, which make foreign purchases—such as importing high-quality foreign cars—unnecessarily difficult.
Confidence-Building Measures
Pezeshkian’s swearing-in is slated for the end of July, after which he will have two weeks to nominate his cabinet. Arrangements are already underway. On July 12th, Mohammad Javad Zarif, the former foreign minister, was appointed to lead the special council for the incoming administration. Zarif has said he will not take part in the next administration, mostly due to hostility from the principlists given his instrumental role in negotiating the JCPOA and his criticism of Iran’s foreign policy under Raisi. Nevertheless, Zarif remains broadly popular among the Iranian public, and his early support for Pezeshkian was unquestionably instrumental in his victory.
During televised debates, Pezeshkian stated that he would not claim to be an expert in all matters. Instead, he asserted, he would rely on specialists and technocrats to address the country’s myriad problems. Recently, the Strategic Council has requested that the Association of Economists, along with the Chambers of Commerce, Universities, and Scientific Centers, provide experts to handle government portfolios. This approach aims to help prepare the final list of cabinet members for approval. While many emphasize that this team should be empowered to address both internal and external issues with authority from the highest levels of the supreme leadership, perhaps this is a step too far. The voters would be pleased with even modest improvement in the country’s economic conditions, but the new administration will unlikely has too much leeway in matters of foreign policy.
Nevertheless, Pezeshkian has been working to gauge the political climate and build up rapport with the ruling clerics, institutions, and supporters of rival factions. After his election victory, he attended religious ceremonies and gatherings, including those hosted by supporters of his political rivals, as a show of sympathy and to call for unity and allay concerns among hardliners and conservative factions who worry about his possible deviation from the fundamentals of the 1979 revolution. Moreover, Pezeshkian has embarked on a set of confidence-building measures with Iran’s supreme leader, highlighting Ayatollah Khamenei’s role in ensuring the fairness of the election and promising not to radically alter executive policies or overstepping the regime’s established policies and red lines. A day after his election win, Pezeshkian canceled a planned conference with the media and went straight to meet with Ayatollah Khamenei, a meeting which reportedly lasted over five hours.
Clearly, the president-elect faces a road filled with myriad potholes. He must piece together a diverse and qualified cabinet that could survive the hardliner-controlled parliament’s no-confidence vote while obtaining the Supreme Leader’s approval to negotiate with Western powers. Iranian politics is not chess; while Pezeshkian plans his moves, the country’s powerful ultraconservative faction will spare no effort to obstruct and undermine the new administration’s policies. Indeed, even before Pezeshkian has taken office, they have already started doing so. But despite these obstacles, Pezeshkian and his team will embark on their mission with a key strength: the backing of over 16 million voters, a mandate that obliges the president-elect to forge a different path ahead for his country.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Gulf International Forum.
Issue: Politics & Governance
Country: Iran