What to Expect From Iran’s New President

Iran has elected a new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, to fill the position vacated by the death of Ebrahim Raisi in May. Following a first round of voting on Jun. 28, in which none of the four candidates achieved the 50% needed to win outright, the election went to a second round. This gave the Iranian people a stark choice between Pezeshkian, a former heart surgeon considered to be a political reformer, and Saeed Jalili, a hard-liner. Pezeshkian secured victory with 55% of the vote. He was elected with the expectation of implementing policies designed to bolster Iran’s struggling economy by improving relations with the West, with an eye on the lifting of long-standing sanctions. But the reality is somewhat different. Pezeshkian will likely keep Iran on its present course in terms of foreign relations, while turning his reformer’s eye inward, seeking to mollify tensions that led to mass protests in 2022.

Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash sent shockwaves through Iran and the world. Under his leadership, Iran had pivoted strongly away from the West and toward Eurasia, particularly Russia. He had been voted into power in a 2021 election that saw the lowest level of participation in the history of the Islamic republic (49%) and a record-high number of “protest votes,” where ballots were left blank. While millions of Iranians mourned Raisi’s death, the fact is many of them — especially the younger population — had grown tired of conservative governance, blaming it for Iran’s isolation in the world and a lack of economic and social opportunity at home.

This discontent was evident in the first round of the elections held to select Raisi’s successor. Less than 40% of the eligible electorate participated — a precipitous drop from the record-low turnout of 2021. In a nation where voter participation has been linked to overall approval of the system of government, the 2024 presidential election was shaping up to be a referendum on where the people of Iran stood when it came to the theocratic Islamic republic.

In the second round on Jul. 5, 49% of the eligible electorate voted — still low by historical standards, but a marked improvement over the first round. The increased participation helped put Pezeshkian ahead of Jalili, creating the perception of enhanced expectations for both economic and societal reforms.

Pivot to Eurasia Continues

At the time of Raisi’s death, Iran was engaged in a decades-long struggle with the West that hinged on opposition to its pursuit of nuclear power, inclusive of uranium enrichment, even though Iran, as a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), was permitted the same access to the nuclear fuel cycle as all other NPT members. Iran’s relations with the West were further clouded by tensions with the US. The two countries have been on the cusp of conflict for decades, ever since the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979, the year the Islamic republic was founded. The hostility continued through limited military conflict in the Mideast Gulf in the 1980s and a proxy conflict in neighboring Iraq following the US-led invasion and occupation in 2003.

The inherent policy prejudices on both sides have precluded any meaningful effort by either the US or Iran to improve relations. Even the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was more of a stop-gap measure designed to avoid war than a comprehensive plan for peace. Europe did not fully engage with Iran economically, as required by the agreement, and the US was unable and/or unwilling to categorize the JCPOA as a treaty, instead leaving it as an executive order under President Barack Obama that was readily discarded by his successor, Donald Trump, in 2018.

This prompted a harder pivot to the East, intended to bypass economic sanctions and forge alliances designed to protect Iran’s national security. Iran’s status as the center of gravity of what has become known as the “Axis of Resistance” — a coalition of state and nonstate actors aligned against US and Israeli interests in the Mideast — has put it at odds with US and European policymakers. Its strong support for the Palestinian cause and Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah have also detrimentally impacted its relations with the West.

Recent manifestations of this eastward pivot include Iran’s strategic decisions to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Brics community, and to align itself with Russia economically and militarily. While the Iranian people are frustrated with the lack of economic opportunity because of Western sanctions, the approach taken by the collective Iranian leadership — including the person with the ultimate say in these matters, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — has aligned Iran’s political and economic future toward Eurasia and away from the West. Pezeshkian’s election will not alter this trajectory.

Domestic Reform

The death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurdish woman arrested for allegedly wearing the hijab in an improper way, set off massive protests inside Iran in September 2022 that were suppressed by the security services. Raisi, speaking at a closed-door event in New York a year later, called the protests one of the most serious challenges to the authority and rule of the Islamic republic since the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, likening them to a “war” waged by Western proxies to promote the overthrow of the Iranian theocracy.

Pezeshkian has spoken out against heavy-handed suppression of public demonstrations in the past, dating back to the crackdown on the so-called “Green Revolution” in 2008, and has promised to investigate Amini’s death. He has also pledged to reform Iran’s domestic policies on restrictive dress codes for Iranian women. Of mixed Azeri-Kurdish parentage, Pezeshkian is well positioned to handle the ethnic tensions that exist inside Iran today. Doing so will be his mandate and greatest challenge.

The decision by the Guardian Council, Iran’s controversial electoral “gatekeeper,” to include Pezeshkian on the ballot appears to be a decision by the supreme leader to provide the Iranian people with a chance to voice their desire for domestic political reform. The people have responded — and it now is up to Iran’s new president, and the Islamic republic itself, to demonstrate whether they are collectively up to the task.

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