The death of former Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi last May in a helicopter crash shocked the world. Raisi, nicknamed “the hangman from Tehran” due to his involvement in the killing of thousands of regime opponents in Iran, is seen as Khamenei’s protégé and one of the leading candidates to succeed him as supreme leader.
Raisi’s death led to elections in the country last Friday, in which the reformist candidate Masoud Pazkhian was elected, perhaps the most different figure from Raisi that there could be, as far as the Iranian theocracy allows. Who is Massoud Pazkhian, what are his positions in relation to the West and Israel, is his election even part of Khamenei’s political plans and will he be able to influence the election of the 85-year-old supreme leader’s successor?
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“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you and in the end you win,” said the father of the Indian nation, Mahatma Gandhi, in that famous quote. The path taken by Pazkhian (69) to the top of Iranian politics was more or less like this.
He was born in Mahabad, a city in northwestern Iran in the Iranian Kurdistan region. His mother was Kurdish-Iranian and his father was Azeri. After serving in the army, he studied medicine and served as a doctor in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, and in the early 1990s he became a leading expert in heart surgery and was even appointed president of the Tabriz University of Medical Studies.
His record in the world of medicine led Mohammad Khatami, the fifth president of Iran, to appoint him in 1997 as deputy minister of health and later as minister of health. Since then he has been elected five times to the Iranian parliament, but Pazkhian was not satisfied with membership in the parliament, he wanted to be its head.
The first time he ran in the presidential elections, in 2013, he was not counted at all and when he realized he had no chance – he withdrew from the race, in 2021 he tried to run again against Raisi, but was disqualified by the Council of Guardians of the Constitution, the religious group that is the supreme authority in Iranian politics headed by Khamenei. Now, after they didn’t count him out the first time, they fought him a second time, in the end he won.
He finished the first round of the elections with the upper hand with 44 percent while his opponent, Said Jalili, was close with 40 percent. In the second round held on Friday between the two leaders only, Pazkhian surprised the favorite Jalili and won with 53.7 percent of the votes. He is expected to take office early next month.
A paper tiger
Even within the reformist party, Pazkhian’s path to the top was not a bed of roses, and at first he was not considered a prominent candidate. He began to build his position with the help of his criticism of the regime.
Pazkhian criticized the government’s lack of transparency vis-à-vis the Iranian public, the governmental corruption which in his opinion led to the loss of public trust in the country, the obligation of women to wear the hijab in the public sphere, the regime’s violent attitude towards those protesting the economic situation in Iran, and more.
After he was disqualified from running in the presidential elections in 2021, he responded with sarcasm when he said: “I thank the Council of Guardians of the Constitution for saving my time,” and added: “The council should publish the reason why it rejected me.”
The very act of criticizing the Iranian regime received a great deal of resonance in the international media, and this is indeed a noteworthy matter, but it is important to clarify that the criticisms passed by Pazkhian were very subtle and were often accompanied by criticisms of both sides. For example, in the wave of mass protests that broke out following the killing of the young woman Mahsa Amini by the morality police in 2022, after she did not wear her hijab properly, he called for the establishment of an investigation team for the events, but at the same time condemned the demonstrations and said that they divide the country, create hatred and serve Iran’s enemies.
Another area that received global coverage is Pazkhian’s attitude to the West.
All except Israel
The position presented by Pazkhian in relation to the West is more moderate compared to the one to which we have become accustomed from Raisi, Rouhani and Ahmadinejad, and he has already expressed a willingness to open talks to improve relations with these countries. He sees this as a way to remove the sanctions on Iran, which will allow it to integrate back into the international economy, one of his main goals according to him.
However, Pazkhian visited the US repeatedly over the years and even praised the military for shooting down an American drone in 2019, saying it was: “a strong blow received by the Americans, which proved to them that our country will not surrender to them.”
After voting on Friday, Pazkhian said that if he won he would “try to maintain friendly relations with all countries except Israel.”
Khamenei’s exercise?
The candidates for the position of president are identified by several committees and finally the supreme leader, Khamenei, approves their candidacy. Despite the warm relations between Khamenei and Said Jalili and the fact that the Ayatollah generally supports the more conservative candidates, speculations arose that behind the scenes Khamenei actually supports Pashkhian.
After several years filled with protests, several election campaigns with the lowest voter turnout in the country since the revolution and a growing crisis of trust between the Iranian people and the government, it is precisely a president who is perceived as not connected to the regime and has even criticized it that may calm the area more easily and restore stability.
An interesting question regarding the 85-year-old Khamenei is: what will happen when he dies? And assuming this happens during the term of the new president, Massoud Pazkhian, who is seen as more liberal, will he be involved in choosing the next supreme leader?
For the sake of our son, the answer is negative. The Supreme Leader’s deputy will be chosen by the Council of Experts, which includes 88 religious scholars who are elected by the public for a period of eight years. It is possible that Pazkhian will have some influence from the outside, he will be able to whisper in the ears of the religious scholars and recommend for or against potential successors, but formally he will not have any influence on the selection of Iran’s supreme leader.
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