Confirmation of Presidential Order; Massoud Pezeshkian Attends Government Meeting

The confirmation ceremony of Massoud Pezeshkian's presidential order by Ali Khamenei took place two days before his oath in the parliament, at the office of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic. Shortly after, Mr. Pezeshkian attended the first meeting of the government. On Sunday, August 7, with the commencement of this ceremony, the Supreme Leader confirmed Massoud Pezeshkian's presidential order. Confirmation means validating the order, and with the confirmation of an individual who has won the presidential election, the term 'elected president' is no longer used for him, and he holds all presidential powers. According to Article 110 of the Islamic Republic's Constitution, the leader must confirm the order of the president elected in the voting and endorse it. Following this ceremony, it was announced that Massoud Pezeshkian appointed Mohammad Reza Aref as the first vice president. Mohammad Reza Aref, who was the first vice president in Mohammad Khatami's second government, is a 73-year-old reformist politician who is a member of the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council and a real member of the Expediency Discernment Council. Mr. Pezeshkian also appointed Mohsen Hajimirzaei as his chief of staff. Mohsen Hajimirzaei served as the Minister of Education from 2019 to 2021 in Hassan Rouhani's government. According to Iranian media, the first meeting of the government with Massoud Pezeshkian was held on Sunday. He has not yet introduced his cabinet and is scheduled to take the presidential oath in the parliament on August 9 and then introduce his ministers to gain the parliament's vote of confidence. In this meeting, Mohammad Reza Aref and Mohsen Hajimirzaei accompanied Mr. Pezeshkian, and Mohammad Mokhber, who was the acting president after the death of Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash, stated that the ministers of the thirteenth government 'consider themselves obliged to support and assist' Massoud Pezeshkian. During the confirmation ceremony on Sunday morning, Ahmad Vahidi, the Minister of Interior, presented a report on the process of holding the first and second rounds of elections, followed by speeches from Massoud Pezeshkian and then Ali Khamenei. Domestic news agencies reported that 'more than 2500 officials from the country and military' and others attended this ceremony. Massoud Pezeshkian, the president of the fourteenth government, called for government officials to 'swear an oath together' to 'implement the frameworks of the leader's general policies.' He also promised that his working method would be based on 'justice and fairness.' Mr. Pezeshkian added that 'I am grateful for the kindness and wisdom of the leader of the revolution, who opened the field for the effective participation of the nation and competition of different policies in the fourteenth presidential election, and I remain humble before the Iranian people who stepped into the arena and entrusted this responsibility to me with their vote.' His remarks about 'opening the field for competition of different policies' come at a time when mechanisms such as supervisory oversight and political repression continue to limit the policymaking arena in Iran to the leader. Meanwhile, the main power in the Islamic Republic is in the hands of the leader, who can determine the direction and orientation of any elections in Iran using the tools and institutions under his control. Nevertheless, Ali Khamenei, in his speech at the Sunday ceremony, criticized the era of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's rule, describing it as a period of 'disarray, humiliation, and passivity,' claiming that 'the Islamic Revolution gifted the intervention in the country's affairs to the people.' In recent days, the Supreme Leader has emphasized that a unified voice must be heard from the country, differences should not be made public, and he called for the 'help' of the parliament to Massoud Pezeshkian for 'fulfilling the duties' of his government. During the confirmation ceremony of Mr. Pezeshkian as the new president, the heads of the judiciary and legislative branches, the chairman of the Assembly of Experts, and the secretary of the Guardian Council accompanied Ayatollah Khamenei in a special position. Notable figures present at this ceremony included Hassan Rouhani (former president), Saeed Jalili, and Alireza Zakani (Pezeshkian's electoral rivals), Ali Larijani, Ahmad Jannati, and Ali Akbar Nategh Nouri. Mohammad Javad Zarif, the former foreign minister and a close figure to Mr. Pezeshkian, was also present at this ceremony. Iranian news agencies did not report or publish images of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mohammad Khatami's presence at this ceremony. On the eve of the confirmation and oath-taking ceremony and the selection of the new cabinet, Mohammad Khatami, the former reformist president of Iran, met and discussed with Massoud Pezeshkian at his invitation on Saturday evening, August 6. Khatami had also met with Pezeshkian following his election as president on July 8. Pezeshkian: The cabinet list will be announced after 'coordination with the leader.' On Sunday, coinciding with the confirmation ceremony, no public holiday was declared in Iran, but several institutions, including the Islamic Consultative Assembly and the Tehran City Council, stated they would be closed due to the confirmation ceremony. The oath-taking ceremony for Massoud Pezeshkian is scheduled to be held in the parliament on Tuesday. Various narratives have emerged in recent years indicating that appointing ministers for ministries such as foreign affairs, intelligence, interior, and culture and Islamic guidance is not possible without the approval of the Supreme Leader. However, Massoud Pezeshkian stated that after compiling the cabinet list by his advisors, they will approach Ali Khamenei at the final stage and reach a 'final consensus' in coordination and consultation with him to introduce the cabinet members. In the early presidential election held on July 15, following the death of Ebrahim Raisi and his entourage, Massoud Pezeshkian was introduced as the new president of Iran with over 16 million votes. However, the first round of this election recorded the lowest level of public participation compared to previous presidential elections. Yet, Ali Khamenei and other officials of the Islamic Republic have not addressed the main issues that led to the decrease in public turnout in the elections. Economic Issues and Foreign Relations Massoud Pezeshkian recently stated that the 8% economic growth mentioned in Iran's development programs is not achievable without foreign relations. However, in his first statements and meetings after being elected as president, he focused on the issue of Gaza and continued support for militias backed by the Republic in the region. Despite Massoud Pezeshkian's previous emphasis on 'foreign relations,' the Supreme Leader, in his speech at the confirmation ceremony, stated that 'no internal issue should be contingent on foreign matters.' He also said that 'priorities must be observed, and today the priority is economic issues.' Meanwhile, officials of the Islamic Republic have always declared sanctions against Iran as one of the main causes of the dire economic situation, while critics attribute the regional and global policies of Ali Khamenei as the cause of these sanctions. In the continuation of his Sunday speech, the Supreme Leader said that 'one of the priorities is to establish strong relations with countries that helped us in difficult times' and added, 'We have no motivation to oppose some European countries; they did not treat us well.' Hossein Shariatmadari: Members of Pezeshkian's Advisory Council are 'defenders of homosexuality.' Hossein Shariatmadari, Ali Khamenei's representative at Kayhan Institute, claims that most members of Massoud Pezeshkian's advisory council, the winner of the presidential election, have a record of 'security convictions,' 'collaboration with enemy intelligence services,' and 'defending homosexuality.' In a note in the Kayhan newspaper, Shariatmadari also accused these council members of many issues, including 'corruption,' 'disbelief in the system,' and collaboration with 'sedition and chaos.' Mahmoud Sadeghi, a former member of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, published a letter addressed to Ali Khamenei on social media in response to this note on Saturday, August 6. In this letter, Sadeghi stated that Hossein Shariatmadari has explicitly accused the members of the advisory council of criminal titles on the eve of Massoud Pezeshkian's confirmation and called for Shariatmadari to be removed from 'the position of representing the leader and overseeing the Kayhan Institute.' In this context, Mohammad Taghi Fazel Meybodi, a member of the Assembly of Researchers and Teachers of Qom Seminary, also wrote on social media that Hossein Shariatmadari, feeling 'empty-handed and having nothing to say, has resorted to such statements.' Fazel Meybodi compared the representative of the Supreme Leader at Kayhan Institute to someone who is drowning and 'clutches at anything.' While Shariatmadari did not mention the names of the individuals he targeted, he referred to the head of this council, Mohammad Javad Zarif, the foreign minister of Hassan Rouhani's government.