Reformist Masoud Pezeshkian makes it to the second round of Iran’s presidential election

A reformist candidate who has criticized many of Iran’s government policies, including a mandatory headscarf law, will compete next week with a hardline conservative in the country’s presidential runoff election, Iran’s Interior Ministry announced on Saturday. The runoff comes after a special vote called after the death of the previous leader, Ebrahim Raisi, in a helicopter crash last month.

The second round of voting, which pits reformist Masoud Pezeshkian against ultraconservative former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, will take place on July 5. The second round of voting is partly a result of low turnout and three main candidates, including two who are vying for conservative votes. Iranian law requires the winner to receive more than 50 percent of the total vote.

According to the Interior Ministry, the majority of Iranians, 60%, did not vote on Friday, which analysts and candidates’ aides said was largely an act of protest against the government’s neglect. their demand for meaningful change.

Prominent Iranian economist Siamak Ghassemi said on social media that voters were sending a clear message. “In one of the most competitive presidential elections, where reformists and conservatives fought tooth and nail, 60 percent of Iranians disapproved of reformists and conservatives.”

Iran is facing many challenges, from domestic instability to international tensions. The country’s economy is shrinking under Western sanctions, its citizens’ freedoms are increasingly restricted and its foreign policy is largely shaped by hardline leaders. snake.

The campaign, which initially included six candidates—five conservatives and one reformer—was notable for those issues being discussed frankly and for its open willingness to attack the status quo. In speeches, televised debates and roundtable discussions, candidates criticize government policies and mock optimistic official assessments of Iran’s economic prospects are harmful illusions.

Public dissatisfaction with the ability of any new president to bring about change is reflected in low voter turnout, a record low in presidential elections and even lower The reported rate is 41 percent. in parliamentary elections earlier this year. The low vote total would be a blow to the country’s ruling clerics, who had viewed voter participation as a sign of the legitimacy of the vote and had hoped to achieve a 50 percent turnout.

inside Official results announced On Saturday, Dr. Pezeshkian led with 10.4 million votes (42.4 percent), followed by Mr. Jalili with 9.4 million votes (38.6 percent). A third conservative candidate, Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, current speaker of parliament and former mayor of Tehran, ranked third with 3.3 million (13.8%).

It remains unclear whether a runoff election between two candidates representing two different political trends will attract more voters, as many Iranians consider the candidates are part of a system they want to oppose completely.

“This is going to be a very difficult and challenging week,” Mohammad Mobin, a Tehran-based analyst who worked on Dr. Pezeshkian’s campaign, said on Saturday. “To appeal to voters, we have to be strategic.” He added, speaking of conservatives, “People think there is no difference between us and them.”

Simple math seems to suggest Mr. Jalili would exceed 50 percent if he won Mr. Ghalibaf’s vote. But in previous polls, many who voted for Mr. Ghalibaf said they would not support Mr. Jalili. And Dr. Pezeshkian could win votes from those who fear the prospect of Jalili becoming president.

In a neighborhood in northern Tehran on Saturday, a group of men discussed the election results and the prospects of a runoff over coffee. One of them, Farzad Jafari, 36, predicts turnout in the next election will be higher. He and others also debated whether Mr. Jalili could unify the conservative vote in a head-to-head contest, or whether there would even be many voters who would support Dr. Pezeshkian’s reform plan. go out.

Mr. Jafari said he thought many people, like him, who sat out Friday’s vote would likely be brought back for a second round of voting. “I don’t want to vote at all because they eliminated people who should have been in the race, they were mainly reformers,” he said. “But many people will vote next time in the next round and those who abstained or did not vote will come.”

Besides domestic pressure, Iran’s leaders are also facing a particularly volatile moment in the region: Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas, an Iran-backed militant group, and the The escalation in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah pits two Iranian proxies against Israel. eternal enemy.

Despite the criticism during the campaign, the candidates are all members of Iran’s political establishment, approved to run by a committee of clerics and Islamic jurists. All but one, Dr. Pezeshkian, are considered conservatives close to the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Mr Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator, is likely to be the candidate closest to Mr Khamenei. He leads the far-right Paydari party and represents the country’s most hard-line ideological views when it comes to domestic and foreign policy. Mr Jalili has said he does not believe Iran needs to negotiate with the United States to achieve economic success.

Dr. Pezeshkian is a cardiac surgeon and veteran of the Iran-Iraq War who served in the Iranian parliament and as health minister. After his wife died in a car accident, he raised his other children as a single father and never remarried. This, along with his identity as an Azeri, one of Iran’s ethnic minorities, has endeared him to many voters.

Dr. Pezeshkian was endorsed by former reformist president Mohammad Khatami, and he has expressed openness to nuclear negotiations with the West, framing the debate as an economic issue with a view to finally escape economic sanctions over the country’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

After fierce public debate, Mr. Ghalibaf issued a statement Saturday endorsing Mr. Jalili and asking his voters to do the same to ensure victory for the conservatives.

By arranging the moves to increase the conservatives’ chances of victory, Mr Khamenei has shown his desire to have a second-in-command whose views reflect his own and who will continue his hardline agenda. Mr. Raisi.

The low turnout reflected widespread apathy among Iranians, who are increasingly frustrated by the government’s brutal crackdown on protesters demanding change and its inadequate response to the damage that decades of sanctions have inflicted on the economy, sapping Iranians’ purchasing power.

The most recent anti-government protests — and a subsequent crackdown — were largely fueled by Mahsa Amini’s death in 2022person died in police custody after being detained for improperly wearing a mandatory hijab or headscarf.

In recognition of the unpopularity of the headscarf law, the candidates sought to distance themselves from the measures used by the country’s moral policy to enforce the law, including violence, arrests and fines.

While a new president could relax enforcement of the headscarf order, as Mr. Khatami and another moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, did during their terms, it is unlikely the law will be repealed. rejected.

That’s largely because Iran is a theocracy with parallel systems of governance, in which elected bodies are overseen by appointed councils of Muslim clerics and jurists. And major state policies on nuclear, military and foreign affairs are decided by the country’s supreme leader, Mr. Khamenei.

The role of president focuses on domestic policy and economic issues, but remains an influential position. For example, Rouhani played an active role in crafting the 2015 deal with Western powers in which Iran agreed to scale back its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

The Trump administration withdrew the United States from that deal in 2018, and Iran has returned to enriching uranium since then. In addition to tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program, over the past year the United States and Iran have moved increasingly closer to a direct confrontation as they compete for influence across the Middle East.

In Gaza, the war between Israel, a US ally, and Hamas has drawn the US, Iran and its foreign proxies into closer conflict. Iran sees the use of these groups as a way to expand its power, but many citizens, especially in the cities, see little value in their leaders’ strategies and believe that the The economy will only recover through sustained diplomacy and sanctions relief. “We are in a Third World country and we are sitting on the cusp of a lot of wealth,” Vahid Arafati, 38, a Tehran cafe owner, said after voting Friday. “For example, the Arab countries are reaping the benefits of their wealth, but with our politics we cannot get anything.”

Asked why he voted if he didn’t expect much change, he said: “Maybe I do a little bit “Hope.” Pausing for a moment, he added: “Isn’t it good to have a little hope?”

Leily Nikounazar contributed reporting.