[ad_1]
Iran’s Interior Ministry said on Saturday that low-key moderate candidate Masoud Pezeshkian has won Iran’s presidential runoff election, promising to open Iran to the world and achieve the freedoms the Iranian people crave.
The report said, “Pezeshkian won a majority in Friday’s vote to become Iran’s next president.”
Pezeshkian was the only moderate among the original four candidates, while Sayyed Jalili, a hard-line former nuclear negotiator and staunch advocate of deepening relations with Russia and China, was among them. The competition between the two was very fierce, with a voter turnout of about 50%.
Friday’s runoff follows a historically low-turnout election on June 28, in which more than 60 percent of Iranian voters abstained from voting in the election for the successor to Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash.
Videos on social media showed Pezeshkian’s supporters dancing in the streets of many towns across the country and motorists honking their horns to cheer his victory.
Witnesses said people in the northwestern city of Urmia, Pezeshkian’s hometown, were handing out candy on the streets.
While the election is expected to have little impact on the Islamic Republic’s policies, the president will be closely involved in choosing a successor to Iran’s 85-year-old Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has decision-making power over major state affairs.
Turnout has fallen sharply over the past four years, which critics say shows support for clerical rule has waned amid growing public discontent over economic hardship and curbs on political and social freedoms.
In the 2021 election that brought Lacy to power, only 48% of voters participated in the vote, and the turnout in the parliamentary election in March was 41%.
The election comes at a time of heightened tensions in the Middle East over wars between Israel and Iranian allies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and as Western countries step up pressure on Iran over its fast-moving uranium enrichment program.
The next president is not expected to make any major policy shifts on the nuclear program or support for Middle Eastern militias, but he would be responsible for running the day-to-day work of the administration and be able to influence the tone of Iran’s foreign and domestic policies.
Loyal rival
Analysts say a victory for Pezeshkian could boost a pragmatic foreign policy, ease tensions over now-stallated talks with major powers to revive the 2015 nuclear deal and improve prospects for social liberalization and political pluralism.
However, many voters are skeptical about Pezeshkian’s ability to deliver on his campaign promises, as the former health minister has publicly said he has no intention of confronting Iran’s clerical and security hawkish power elite.
“I didn’t vote last week, but today I voted for Pezeshkian. I know Pezeshkian will be an incompetent president, but he’s still better than the hardliners,” said Afarin, 37, owner of a beauty salon in the central Iranian city of Isfahan.
Many Iranians have painful memories of the handling of nationwide unrest sparked by the 2022 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurdish woman, which the government quelled with a violent crackdown that included mass detentions and even executions.
“I will not vote. I said ‘no’ to the Islamic Republic because of Mahsa (Amini). I want a free country, I want to live freely,” said Sepid, a 19-year-old university student in Tehran.
The hashtag #ElectionCircus has been widely posted on social media platform X since last week, with some domestic and foreign activists calling for a boycott of the election, arguing that a high turnout would legitimize the Islamic Republic.
Both candidates have vowed to revive Iran’s flagging economy, which has been plagued by mismanagement, government corruption and sanctions since the United States under then-President Donald Trump abandoned the nuclear deal in 2018.
“I will vote for Jalili. He believes in Islamic values. He promised to end our economic woes,” said Mahmoud Hamidzadegan, a 64-year-old retired worker in the northern city of Sari.
Read more by Euractiv
[ad_2]
Source link
