Editor’s be aware: Javad Heylania is a Tehran-based overseas coverage skilled and frequent contributor to Middle East Perspectives. He additionally follows developments inside Iran and is properly knowledgeable about modifications throughout the nation’s restricted political area.
Iran’s highly effective Guardian Council, the nation’s highly effective elected workplace vetting physique, on Sunday permitted just one reformist candidate for the June 28 presidential election to switch the late Ebrahim Raisi.
Massoud Pezeshkian, a heart specialist and member of parliament, is supported by the Iranian Reform Front, a coalition of reformist teams and events.
Mohammed Khatami, who served as Iran’s president from 1997 to 2005 and continues to be thought-about the chief of the reform motion, had stated earlier than the qualification of candidates that he would participate within the election if one in all his reformist members handed the vetting stage. This was vital provided that Khatami had refused to vote in latest parliamentary elections in protest on the slender vary of candidates permitted by the council.
In a lately launched audio recording, Khatami stated reformists’ earlier method of backing candidates exterior their very own group was fallacious and tantamount to begging the institution.
The problem going through reformers on this election is to draw votes from residents who’re bored with political participation and consider it can not enhance their state of affairs. Both the 2021 and 2024 parliamentary elections noticed document low voter turnout, beneath 50 %. But the expertise of a parliament and authorities led by radical conservatives could encourage some Iranians to return to the poll field.
The mass protests that adopted the loss of life of the younger lady Mahsa Amini in police custody in 2022, and the persevering with deterioration of the financial, social, cultural and political state of affairs in Iran, have proven many Iranians that an idealistic and theoretical view of issues just isn’t tolerated. In these circumstances, reformists can depend on political participation from a few of the center lessons.
Pezeshkian based the Islamic-left Medical Students Association after the 1979 revolution, served as well being minister throughout Khatami’s second time period, and is a long-time member of parliament. To defend himself from assaults from opponents, Pezeshkian has drawn near moderates throughout the reformist camp, together with Mohammed Reza Aref, who served as vp underneath Khatami and is the founding father of a nongovernmental group targeted on sustainable improvement. Pezeshkian’s marketing campaign workers additionally leans towards the reformist center tier, more likely to fend off assaults from conservatives.
Pezeshkian introduced that if he turns into president, he’ll nominate Mohammad Javad Zarif as overseas minister. Zarif was instrumental within the creation of the 2015 nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), underneath Raisi’s predecessor, President Hassan Rouhani. In his first tweet after being licensed by the Guardian Council, Pezeshkian used the hashtag #for_Iran (#برای_ایران), and Zarif additionally tweeted his assist with the identical hashtag.
Another necessary benefit for Pezeshkian is that he’s ethnic Azerbaijani (the most important linguistic group in Iran after Persians) and will doubtlessly entice votes from this group and different ethnic minorities.
Having 5 conservative candidates additionally helps, as it’s going to break up the conservative vote until the opposite 4 drop out. Hardline candidate Said Jalili is attempting to distinguish himself from his essential rival, Parliament Speaker Mohamed Baqer Qalibaf, by emphasizing his dedication to combating corruption.
Qalibaf’s probabilities of profitable are that he has the assist of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the so-called Deep State.
Iran’s overseas coverage is decided by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with necessary recommendation from the IRGC. Pezechkian outlined the precedence of overseas coverage as speaking with different international locations based mostly on the rules of Iran’s dignity, purpose and pursuits. “If we need to function based mostly on this coverage, we should behave civilly in the direction of everybody and construct good relations with everybody based mostly on dignity and pursuits,” he stated. “The extra we enhance diplomatic relations, the nearer we’re to the aforementioned coverage, however the extra tensions develop, the additional we transfer away from the coverage and the more severe the state of affairs turns into.”
He additionally pressured his name for brotherhood and concord amongst Arab and Islamic international locations.
His considering appears much like that of the Rouhani administration, which sought a balanced overseas coverage with each East and West, fairly than the strongly pro-China and pro-Russia line of the Raisi administration.
Qalibaf is taken into account a pragmatist amongst conservatives. In his election manifesto, he emphasised bettering dwelling circumstances, but in addition known as Rouhani’s presidency a backward one. Qalibaf just isn’t against negotiations with the United States and could also be open to reviving the JCPOA, which the Trump administration withdrew from in 2018 and which the Raisi administration has didn’t revive.
Meanwhile, Jalili’s authorities is more likely to additional strengthen its “East-oriented” stance in relations with Russia and China. Jalili, who served as nuclear negotiator underneath Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was a staunch opponent of the JCPOA and opposed negotiations with the United States even after the Supreme Leader and President Ahmadinejad permitted them in 2012.
In his memoirs, Foreign Minister Zarif wrote, “During the Ahmadinejad administration, negotiations in Oman [then Foreign Minister Ali] Through Salehi’s persistence and with the permission of the management… Jalili was against negotiations with Oman on the time and was among the many opponents of the JCPOA throughout the nuclear negotiations.”
Even when Jalili’s former colleague, Ali Bagheri, who’s now performing overseas minister, was entrusted with efforts to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) underneath President Raisi, Jalili expressed his opposition to Iran-U.S. negotiations in a letter to Ayatollah Khamenei, demanding that they be terminated and saying Iran ought to enrich uranium to weapons-grade ranges.
The opposition of Jalili and media near him provoked a robust response from Bagheri, who stated in September 2023 that “those that, within the identify of defending values, try to make the negotiations seem primarily anti-values, are literally attempting to deprive the system of this necessary and important instrument for guaranteeing the pursuits of the nation.”