Iran’s president-elect, Masoud Pezeshkian, walked by way of the wooded cemetery, admired the gravestones and sat subsequent to at least one bearing his spouse’s title earlier than stepping into his automobile and weeping.
The scenes are captured in a marketing campaign video addressed to Pezeshkian’s spouse, Fatemeh. “I miss you greater than ever,” a narrator says on Pezeshkian’s behalf. “I want you have been right here with me throughout these troublesome days of creating this oath.”
It is uncommon for Iranian politicians to profess their love in public, and even rarer to cry on digital camera for his or her lovers.
But Pezechkian, the 69-year-old coronary heart surgeon who gained a serious reform victory, appears to be like and speaks unconventionally.
He has portrayed himself as a contemporary chief for a brand new period in Iran, a religious man who seen his spouse as an equal companion whereas she was alive, a physician like himself, and a loyal widower after she died in a automobile accident, elevating three youngsters and by no means remarrying.
“It’s actually attention-grabbing that he is utilizing his household’s story as proof of his dedication and his trustworthiness,” stated Ali Vaez, Iran director for the International Crisis Group. “He’s dedicated to supporting the Iranian individuals simply as he supported his household within the absence of his mom.”
Pezeshkian has stated he desires to steer Iran towards a extra affluent, extra socially open and nearer engagement with the West. In an op-ed revealed within the Tehran Times on Saturday, he described his international coverage as “opportunity-driven” and stated he was open to strengthening ties with allies Russia and China whereas additionally cooperating with the European Union. He stated Iran wouldn’t “reply to strain” from the United States.
At a spiritual ceremony at Khamenei’s residence on Friday evening, the supreme chief walked into the corridor with Pezeshkian, one thing observers stated had not been achieved with any president in at the very least the previous three a long time.
“He could have some room to maneuver, however he additionally faces quite a lot of structural obstacles,” Baez stated.
Pezeshkian has sought to painting himself as a extra pragmatic solver reasonably than a disruptor, saying he would defer to Khamenei in debates and pursue the supreme chief’s general insurance policies.
Analysts say Iran will seemingly want to barter with, and even resist, Khamenei to implement promised reforms, equivalent to curbing enforcement of the hijab requirement for ladies, lifting web restrictions and negotiating with the United States to raise sanctions.
Just a couple of months in the past, the prospect of a conservative authorities being changed by a reformist one in Iran appeared like a fantasy, however in May, the nation’s president, conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi, died in a helicopter crash.
He is Iran’s strongest president, a doctor, professor, former well being minister and member of parliament who has served as chairman of a serious medical college and analysis middle. He speaks Persian, Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic and English and educated in medical management at Harvard University, which mates stated in interviews has softened his view of the United States.
Pezeshkian isn’t affiliated with any political occasion, however his rise has been fuelled by the reformist occasion, whose key determine behind his election marketing campaign, former international minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, heads the interim authorities’s advisory council.
Since the election, Pezeshkian has spoken solely to Iranian media, and his workplace stated an interview request from The New York Times was pending.
Colleagues and mates described him as outspoken, trustworthy and motivated by social justice. He criticized corruption and insurance policies that had lowered dwelling requirements in Iran, however at all times remained loyal to the Islamic Republic’s theocracy, they stated.
“He caught to his beliefs, however he knew easy methods to deal with conditions when tensions rose,” Dr. Kianoush Jahanpour, a former deputy well being minister, stated in a phone interview from Tehran.
Born in Mahabad in northwestern Iran to an Azerbaijani father and a Kurdish mom, Pezeshkian enrolled in medical faculty in Tabriz, capital of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province, in 1977, two years earlier than the Islamic Revolution and amid a wave of revolutionary fervor in opposition to the Shah of Iran.
In medical faculty, he fell in love with a classmate, Fatemeh Majidi — a tall, lovely lady with darkish eyes who, in line with mutual mates, was one of many few ladies in his class who wore a hijab — and the 2 married with out the organized marriages that have been frequent of their technology.
“Theirs was a contemporary marriage of equals. They did every part collectively: they studied, protested throughout the revolution, and took turns caring for his or her 4 youngsters throughout evening shifts on the hospital,” Dr. Noraladdin Pirmoazzen, a buddy, classmate and lawmaker, stated in a telephone interview. He and Mr. Pezeshkian volunteered collectively as trauma surgeons throughout the Iran-Iraq warfare.
Pezeshkian accomplished his residency in cardiac surgical procedure and his spouse in gynecology. In 1994, whereas touring, their spouse and their youngest youngster have been killed when their automobile overturned. “It was very troublesome for us to remain alive,” Pezeshkian advised Iranian media.
He by no means opened a personal follow, persevering with to work at public hospitals and the National University Medical Center. He nonetheless operates on sufferers as soon as per week and wears sports activities jackets as an alternative of fits as a part of his public picture. His daughter Zahra, a chemist who campaigned with him, advised state tv that as a toddler the household lived in modest college lodging.
In Tabriz, as rector of the native medical college, he led an effort to construct 600 clinics in rural East Azerbaijan that was acknowledged by the World Health Organization. Under President Mohammed Khatami’s reformist authorities, he was appointed deputy minister of well being and later minister of well being.
Ali Akbar Mousavi Koeini, a former reformist lawmaker who served as Pezeshkian’s well being minister and is now in exile within the United States, stated Pezeshkian was identified for preferring reconciliation to confrontation, however predicted that if he turns into president “clashes will begin when he tries to implement his concepts.”
Some authorities critics argue that Pezeshkian isn’t a reformist, arguing that the system is inherently unreformable and that his presidency needs to be seen as a continuation of the established order.
“I haven’t got a lot hope. Even when reformers have been on the top of their energy, they have been unable to result in lasting, elementary change in ladies’s rights, particularly on this repressive local weather,” imprisoned ladies’s rights activist Arieh Motarebzadeh stated in an interview in Tehran. “Pezezhkian is with the institution.”
Activists say she toed authorities coverage on quite a few events, together with by making the hijab necessary for ladies when she was college rector within the early days of the revolution.
There are additionally questions on how he dealt with the jail demise of Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi in 2003. As well being minister, Pezeshkian examined Kazemi’s physique and was the primary official to say she died of a blow to the top, contradicting the prosecution’s declare that she had died of a coronary heart assault, however did not say that her physique had extra in depth bruising, as her household had alleged.
Supporters say Ms Pezeshkian’s views on the hijab have modified: During the election marketing campaign she stated it was incorrect to inform others easy methods to gown and argued that hijab legal guidelines had backfired.
Khamenei himself has confronted clashes with the regime. In 2003, parliament tried to question him as well being minister over health-care prices and a murky pharmaceutical market. The Guardian Council, a physique of clerics and jurists that vets candidates, twice barred him from presidential and parliamentary eligibility. Khamenei intervened this winter to reinstate his eligibility to run, stated Abbas Abdi, a political analyst who served on Pezeshkian’s election advisory committee.
“The regime has reached a useless finish and has realized that it wants to alter path if it isn’t to break down,” Abdi stated in an interview in Tehran. “The regime acknowledges that Pezeshkian is the person to take the helm, and now we have some hope that Iran will open up.”
Raylee Niconazar contributed reporting.