The presidency in Iran is to some extent what the president makes of it: While strongmen empower the institution, weak presidents reduce it into a largely ceremonial office. Therefore, who occupies the Office of the President in Tehran is significant. Among the six presidential hopefuls who managed to pass the needle eye of the candidate-vetting Guardian Council, only three have a realistic chance of being elected on June 28, or in a potential run-off if no candidate secures a majority in the first round: Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Qalibaf, parliamentarian Masoud Pezeshkian, and Saeed Jalili, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s representative to the Supreme National Security Council. Each of the candidates garnered around 20% of the vote in a June 22 poll by the Parliamentary Research Center. Who are these candidates, what are their chances of winning the election, and what might they do in office?
Strongman Mohammad-Bagher Qalibaf
“I’m the Hezbollahi version of Reza Khan,” Qalibaf tellingly said of himself during the 2005 presidential election. While incomprehensible to most foreigners, Qalibaf’s allusion is perfectly clear to Iranians: Reza Khan, later known as Reza Shah, rose from humble origins through the ranks of the Cossack Brigade, staged a military coup in 1921, and ascended the throne in 1925. He safeguarded Iran’s territorial integrity by crushing separatists in peripheral regions and initiated the modernization and secularization of the country, which controversially included the forced unveiling of women in public spaces. By adding the adjective “Hezbollahi,” meaning follower of the party of God, to “Reza Khan,” Qalibaf conveyed that he too is a strongman committed to safeguarding Iran’s territorial integrity and promoting modernization but with a distinct interpretation of religion’s role in society as promoted by the Islamic Republic.
Qalibaf’s track record largely supports his claim. Born in 1961 in Torqabeh, in Razavi Khorasan province, to a Kurdish father and Persian mother, Qalibaf’s early life remains largely undocumented. In 1979, he joined the local branch of the newly established Basij militia and was soon deployed to Iran’s Kurdistan province to suppress Kurdish separatists. When Iraq invaded Iran in September 1980, the 19-year-old Qalibaf joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and volunteered for front-line duty along with his father and three of his brothers, one of whom was killed in the war. By 1982, Qalibaf had been appointed brigade commander and, shortly thereafter, division chief.
After the war with Iraq, Qalibaf remained in the IRGC. In 1994, he headed the Khatam al-Anbia Construction Base, which was awarded most postwar reconstruction projects in the 1990s and has since grown to become Iran’s largest contractor. In 1997, he was appointed chief of the IRGC air force and, feeling ashamed of not being a pilot, obtained a civilian pilot’s license in France. In 1999, when reformist President Mohammad Khatami hesitated to act against pro-democracy student protesters in Tehran, Qalibaf was among the 24 leading IRGC commanders who, in an open letter to the president, threatened a coup. The following year, Qalibaf was appointed chief of Law Enforcement Forces. Throughout his tenure, he effectively crushed student protests and terrorized the ideologically nonconformist intelligentsia by targeting a small group of well-known dissident intellectuals, subjecting them to repeated police interrogation and arbitrary incarceration.
Qalibaf ran for president in 2005 but lost to populist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Instead, he succeeded Ahmadinejad as mayor of Tehran and remained in office until 2017. A wheeler-dealer not overly restrained by rules and regulations, Qalibaf managed to accomplish significant projects in the capital, enriching friends and associates along the way. Notably, he awarded numerous city projects on a no-bid basis to his personal network and the Khatam al-Anbia Construction Base. Since the 2020 parliamentary elections, Qalibaf has served as parliamentary speaker, advancing political projects that he has since abandoned with the start of his presidential campaign.
In December 2020, as parliamentary speaker, Qalibaf sponsored the bill “Strategic Initiative to Remove Sanctions and Safeguard the Interests of the Iranian Nation” to sabotage President Hassan Rouhani’s efforts to revive the landmark Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with the United States. Today, as a presidential candidate, Qalibaf blames Rouhani for the failure to revive the Iran nuclear deal and promises to renew the agreement with the United States, secure sanctions relief, and improve the well-being of the average Iranian. In another about-face, in 2023 Qalibaf sponsored the draconian “Hijab and Chastity Law,” which has yet to be deemed constitutional by the Guardian Council. However, in his candidacy, Qalibaf now speaks of using softer means to persuade women to abide by the hijab legislation to avoid tragedies such as the killing of Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the morality police.
Qalibaf’s fundamentally unprincipled approach to politics, capable management at times coupled with brutal efficacy, and expansive cronyism have won him influential friends in the government bureaucracy and among the higher ranks of the IRGC. His old network from the IRGC, Tehran municipality, and Parliament, along with capable technocrats outside his network and political opportunists, will likely follow the new strongman of Iran. With such a team, Qalibaf is likely to pursue a foreign and security policy not entirely dissimilar to Rouhani’s: ratcheting up tensions with the United States to get Washington’s attention, negotiating with the United States, offering largely symbolic concessions in return for limited sanction relief, and marginally improving the economy, just enough to secure reelection in four years and to help him play a role in leadership succession after the passing of Khamenei.
A 50% voter turnout may secure Qalibaf’s bid for the presidency, as voters may not necessarily dislike his this-worldliness and may even perceive him as the man on horseback, the Hezbollahi Reza Khan of Iran, who protects Iran at times of peril. A strongman, however, is bound to be on a collision course with Khamenei, whose leadership style is micromanagement of government, taking credit for the successes of the president and Cabinet, while blaming them when his own policy recommendations fail.
Reformist Surgeon Masoud Pezeshkian
Pezeshkian personifies the Islamic Republic’s loyal opposition. Born in 1954 in the Kurdish-populated city of Mahabad in West Azerbaijan province to a Kurdish mother and an Azeri father, Pezeshkian’s prospects in life initially appeared limited. However, he earned a diploma in food production from the Urmia Vocational Training Center. Following his military service in Zabol, in Sistan and Baluchistan province, he was admitted to the Tabriz University of Medical Sciences in 1977. This was an extraordinary achievement for someone from the underdeveloped peripheral regions, reflecting Pezeshkian’s intelligence and hard work, as well as Iran’s rapid modernization in the 1960s and ‘70s. Apart from limited student activism, Pezeshkian does not appear to have played any significant role in the 1979 revolution. He left university in 1980 to volunteer for the war against Iraq, serving as a medic.
After the end of the war in 1988, Pezeshkian returned to university and specialized in general surgery. He began teaching at the university and practiced medicine. Genuinely devout, he also taught the Quran and Nahj al-Balagha, “The Path of Eloquence,” a collection of sermons, sayings, and letters on good governance.
In 2000, Pezeshkian was unexpectedly appointed deputy health minister in President Mohammad Khatami’s Cabinet. This appointment was unusual, as Pezeshkian did not appear to have been politically active or affiliated with the reformist movement, and presidents typically appoint friends and party loyalists to such positions. However, Khatami was an unusual president, and he may have appointed Pezeshkian based on his academic merits, religious devotion, and good reputation. From 2001-05, Pezeshkian capably served as health minister.
Since 2008, Pezeshkian has represented the Tabriz, Azarshahr, and Oskou constituencies in the Iranian Parliament. Notably, he served as the chairman of the influential “Turkic faction” in Parliament, which is composed of native Azeri speakers of varying political orientations and lobbies for public projects in the Azeri-populated northwestern provinces. It was most likely this Azeri alliance that promoted him to deputy speaker of the parliament from 2016-20.
Pezeshkian’s parliamentary track record includes futile attempts to decriminalize substance addiction, which he considers an illness; calls for the transfer of government funds to peripheral regions, including the Kurdistan and Sistan and Baluchistan provinces; and advocacy for the use of the Azeri language in school textbooks in Azeri areas. Even more controversial, Pezeshkian voiced public criticism of police suppression of protesters following the 2009 presidential elections and the house arrest of presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. “Do not treat people like a wild animal,” Pezeshkian famously quoted from the Nahj al-Balagha, accusing the regime of acting like a savage beast. Following the tragic death of Mahsa Amini, Pezeshkian not only stressed the futility of enforcing hijab legislation but also claimed the shame of the killing was so unbearable that he wanted “the earth to open its gape and swallow” him.
Pezeshkian paid a price for his principled comments. In 2021, the Guardian Council barred him from running for president, citing his public criticism of the hijab legislation and the Amini affair. This year, he may have been deemed qualified by the Guardian Council for tactical reasons: to increase voter turnout without giving him a real chance of being elected president.
Herein lies the central challenge and dilemma for Pezeshkian: As a reformist candidate, he must increase voter turnout to at least 60% to have a chance of winning the election. However, he can only achieve this by making false promises of change, which his ethics seem to prohibit him from doing. Throughout the presidential campaign and debates, he has insisted that certain things are beyond the powers of the president and cannot realistically be delivered within the existing frameworks of the regime. For example, the president cannot free political prisoners or release politicians such as Mousavi and Karroubi from house arrest, as this falls within the realm of the Judiciary. Pezeshkian also admits he cannot unblock popular social media sites or solve Iran’s economic problems overnight.
What Pezeshkian promises is to bring in experts, rather than cronies, political comrades, or ideologically committed individuals to improve governance. “When a patient seeks out a surgeon, he or she seldom inquires about religious devotion of the surgeon, they just want to have a skilled surgeon,” he consistently says in debates. He also aims to adjust relations with the United States to achieve sanctions relief, improve Iran’s economy and government finances, and distribute wealth more evenly among the people, which means greater attention to the underdeveloped and underprivileged peripheral regions.
Despite emphasizing the limitations of presidential powers, his potential election victory is likely to increase popular demands for political and economic reforms, which Khamenei is neither willing nor capable of delivering. His honesty will also put him on a collision course with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and other interest groups, demanding their share of the economy. A Pezeshkian presidency is likely to be as conflictual as the Khatami era.
While Iran’s Azeri population constitutes Pezeshkian’s natural constituency, he is also likely to attract votes from Iran’s ethnic and religious minorities in peripheral regions. Many voters may be persuaded to support a fundamentally decent man, a surgeon with a thick Azeri accent, who has no history of corruption or malevolence. Pezeshkian is also likely to benefit from the antics of former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who is campaigning on his behalf all over Iran. City after city, Zarif fills auditoriums to tell the tale of how former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili’s incompetence brought diplomatic isolation and sanctions upon Iran, and how Qalibaf’s sabotaging of Rouhani’s attempts at reviving the nuclear deal cost Iran “$300 billion.” However, it remains to be seen if Pezeshkian’s promises and Zarif’s passion are enough to mobilize apathetic and cynical voters to show up on election day and cast their votes for the reformist candidate.
Zealot Pen Pusher Saeed Jalili
According to a Mashregh News biography, Jalili was born in 1965 in Mashhad, in Razavi Khorasan province. His father was a schoolteacher from Birjand, and his mother was Azeri. There is not much published information about his youth, but he left secondary school, possibly in March 1981, to join the Basij militia and volunteer for the war with Iraq. In 1987, he was injured and lost his right leg, after which he served in administrative positions. After the war, Jalili studied political science at Imam Sadeq University in Tehran, where he authored a doctoral thesis on political thought in Islam and a book on the diplomacy of the Prophet Muhammad.
Along with his studies, Jalili, like many other Imam Sadeq University students and graduates, was also enrolled in government bureaucracy. In 1988, he began working in the Foreign Ministry Inspectorate, where he rigorously screened applicants for ideological nonconformity and perceived lack of religious devotion. By 1990, he was appointed chief inspector, and, in 1997, he became the head of the Foreign Ministry’s North America bureau.
In 2000, Jalili either left or was somehow squeezed out of the Foreign Ministry by Khatami’s team. This demotion, however, paradoxically brought Jalili closer to the center of power in Iran, as he was appointed director of the Current Affairs bureau in the Office of the Supreme Leader. It is not how Khamenei’s office discovered Jalili or what his specific functions were, but serving in Khamenei’s office and his physical proximity to the supreme leader that shaped Jalili’s career.
In 2005, Jalili’s exile from the Foreign Ministry ended when, as president, Ahmadinejad appointed him deputy foreign minister for Europe and North America. From 2007-13, Jalili served as the secretary of the SNSC and has since been Khamenei’s representative to the council. Jalili’s political reputation is primarily based on his track record at the SNSC, particularly his role as a nuclear negotiator and his uneasy political coexistence with Ahmadinejad.
Unfamiliar with international law, Jalili’s nuclear negotiation style was characterized by tedious philosophical abstractions, haranguing the West, denying the Holocaust, and decrying real and imagined conspiracies against Iran – issues irrelevant to the subject at hand. European and U.S. diplomats interpreted Jalili’s outlandish theatrics as a sign of Iran’s disinterest in reaching any agreement and its commitment to build a nuclear bomb. Consequently, under Jalili’s tenure as nuclear negotiator, the United Nations Security Council passed three resolutions against Iran. His intransigence, inflexibility, and inability to play the world powers against each other led to a global consensus against Iran, resulting in unprecedented sanctions on the Iranian economy.
Jalili’s debacle was evident to regime elites and Khamenei. Ali Akbar Velayati, Iran’s longest-serving foreign minister and foreign policy advisor to Khamenei, publicly stated: “Diplomacy does not equal delivering a sermon to the counterpart … Diplomacy is not a philosophy class … Being principled does not equal inflexibility … Diplomacy does not mean hawkishness but is an active and transactional engagement … The art of diplomacy is to safeguard our nuclear rights and reduce sanctions, not increase those sanctions!” Former Foreign Minister Sadegh Kharazi also criticized Jalili’s inability to maneuver outside of the general guidelines provided by Khamenei.
Jalili the candidate is similarly evading unpopular agendas in the presidential election. On June 15, during a television appearance, he was asked: “What will you do as president if a lady not wearing the hijab, or not sufficiently covered, appears in a restaurant, the authorities shut down the restaurant, the owner suffers economic losses, and there is a conflict?” Jalili answered: “We must comprehend the strategic depth of the issue. Otherwise, we cannot understand the meaning of this.” When the questioner pressed further, asking, “So, what should we do in the meantime, until we comprehend the strategic depth of the issue?” Jalili again referred to the “strategic depth” of the issue. Jalili has given similar nonanswers concerning internet censorship and restrictions.
Politically insecure, lacking a natural constituency, devoid of any vision for Iran, and obedient, Jalili resembles the late President Ebrahim Raisi. These same qualities endeared Raisi to Khamenei, and Jalili is likely to benefit from the approximately 30% of voters who habitually vote for Khamenei’s preferred candidate. However, with his overall limited voter appeal, he is likely to do better in low-turnout scenarios; Jalili is more likely to win if there is lower than 40% voter turnout.
Should Jalili prevail in the election, his performance as president is not likely to be any different from that of his predecessor: subservient to Khamenei’s whims and publicly blamed for the regime’s shortcomings. In foreign and security policy, which are decided by the collective leadership of the regime assembled in the SNSC rather than by the president, Jalili would likely continue Rouhani’s path but with less political skill (Rouhani, after all, was the longest-serving SNSC secretary).
The Next Presidency
Who occupies the Office of the President in Tehran is significant. Under Qalibaf, Iran’s presidency would be relatively strong, resembling that of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani or Rouhani: authoritarian modernization, ruthless crushing of the domestic opposition, and competent, if somewhat hard-nosed, engagement with the world. Should Pezeshkian get elected, he is likely to encounter the same difficulties as Khatami: Despite failing to make promises, his political discourse will raise the level of expectations, and the public will demand political reforms, which the leadership is neither able nor willing to deliver. While this dynamic is likely to weaken Pezeshkian’s domestic agenda, all the other factions will see to it that his foreign policy initiatives are defeated so he cannot take credit for negotiations with the United States and potential sanction relief. Meanwhile, a Jalili presidency would look much like a replication of the Raisi presidency: largely ineffective.