Masoud Pezeshkian; Reformist Trusted by the Government or Transformational Conservative?

Masoud Pezeshkian has surprisingly crossed the Guardian Council's barrier to enter a multifaceted competition. Some view him as a game of the Islamic Republic to increase participation, while others see him as a glimmer of hope for transformationalists, especially as he has now secured 42% of the votes, alongside Saeed Jalili with 38%, making him one of the two candidates advancing to the second round of elections. In any case, the two weeks of early presidential election campaigning have brought Masoud Pezeshkian into a new phase of his political life; a period during which his close associates advised him to 'be the same Masoud Pezeshkian he was in previous decades.' This 69-year-old politician describes his political stance as a commitment to the principle of 'distributing resources and advancing development based on justice' for reform. Pezeshkian is the only candidate from the reformist spectrum in the presidential elections. He is known for not always wearing a suit and is famous for his simplicity. This heart surgery specialist has three children whom he has raised after the death of his wife and another child in the 1990s. He has always been present in the Iran-Iraq War and the political scene of the Islamic Republic, even if he has not been widely recognized. This is not the first time Masoud Pezeshkian has entered the presidential race. He withdrew from the competition in 2013 and was not allowed to participate in 2021 by the Guardian Council. However, he has served four terms in the Islamic Consultative Assembly as a representative of Tabriz, Azarshahr, and Eskandari. His blunt speech and sharp rhetoric have become defining characteristics of his tenure; whether in 2009, when he expressed loyalty to the Supreme Leader while using early Islamic history to say, 'Do not say I am the commander, I command, others must obey,' or 14 years later in 2023, when he stated in a parliament that has seen a decline in his allies, 'The people's voice is loud, and we in parliament must listen to it, not that if someone raises their voice, instead of hearing the alarm, we say you are not allowed to leave... and accuse them of actions against national security and imprison them.' If we look back at Masoud Pezeshkian's history, his role as Minister of Health in Mohammad Khatami's second government is another significant aspect of his career. It was during this time that one of the most complex cases of Khatami's second term was opened; the death of Zahra Kazemi, an Iranian-Canadian photographer, after her arrest, which has recently come under scrutiny; a death that for the first time introduced the term 'collision with a hard object' into Iranian political discourse. At that time, Masoud Pezeshkian, a member of the committee investigating the matter, had stated that the bruises on Ms. Kazemi's body were not related to torture, but he also emphasized that 'Zahra Kazemi's skull could not have been broken due to a fall or accidental collision with an object.' Forensic medicine at that time declared the skull fracture as the cause of Zahra Kazemi's death, but dozens of questions from her family's lawyers about this case remained unanswered. In July 2018, Reporters Without Borders stated that those responsible for Zahra Kazemi's murder remain unpunished. On September 19, 2022, Abdollah Ramazanzadeh, Khatami's government spokesman, said in an interview with Shargh newspaper that in one of the government sessions, Masoud Pezeshkian expressed certainty about 'the intentionality of the incident' and 'the blow to Zahra Kazemi's head and the skull fracture.' In the following decades, Masoud Pezeshkian, as a legislator who could utilize his medical knowledge in his statements, commented on various suspicious deaths. For example, in 2009, regarding the deaths of detainees, he told Etemad Melli newspaper, 'Is it possible for someone who has no history of meningitis to suddenly contract this deadly disease in prison? The main point is that detainees are beaten so much that officials are forced to announce that the deceased had meningitis.' This approach continued until the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police. During the COVID-19 pandemic, which severely impacted Iran, he repeatedly criticized the policies adopted as a member of the Health and Treatment Commission of Parliament, believing that the government seemed to have taken the situation 'lightly.' He also described the daily statistics on deaths and infections from COVID as unrealistic and once stated that a 'war room' should be established so that each agency does not make decisions independently. Mr. Pezeshkian also considered the Supreme Leader's order banning the import of vaccines from Western countries as a result of misinformation provided to Khamenei. However, during his election campaign, he spoke several times about his adherence to the Supreme Leader and his plans for Iran. On June 17, he emphasized in a speech at Tehran University that he is 'subservient' to Ali Khamenei and added that he should not be subjected to 'insults' for this reason. He also presents himself as a supporter of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, stating that if this military-security institution did not exist, Iran would have been 'disintegrated.' In his speech at Tehran University, he also mentioned that he would wear the 'IRGC uniform' again, referring to the action of the tenth parliament members who, after the IRGC was placed on the US terrorist list by then-President Donald Trump, appeared in the parliament in the IRGC uniform, and he was one of those representatives. Masoud Pezeshkian also told students that the IRGC he referred to 'was different from the IRGC you see now.' This presidential candidate criticized the police's handling of Mahsa Amini during the 'Women, Life, Freedom' protests in 2022 and rejected the natural causes of her death in a television program. However, during a debate with hardliner Ali Khazarian in December 2022 at Sharif University, he criticized the 'killing of law enforcement' during street protests, calling it 'wrong.' In January of that year, Mr. Pezeshkian also stated in an interview that the way protesters were treated and tried was an example of 'illegal' behavior and warned that Iranian society is 'volatile' due to such behaviors. Masoud Pezeshkian, born in Mahabad and whose family language is Azerbaijani Turkish, is also proficient in Kurdish and was the head of the faction for Turkic regions in the tenth parliament. Although his opponents and rivals use this to criticize him, his supporters argue that Masoud Pezeshkian is pursuing the rights of all groups in Iran with a 'justice-seeking' approach. In describing his election campaign slogan, 'For Iran,' he also elaborated on this approach. In his televised campaign programs and at rallies, he always tried to show that he is not one for 'false promises,' even if this approach does not lead to stirring and encouraging the undecided to vote. In one of the televised debates, he described the political arena in Iran as afflicted by an 'epidemic of lies.' In this context, Mr. Pezeshkian has repeatedly emphasized that if elected, he does not intend to make fundamental changes because there are programs and plans in the Islamic Republic, such as the seventh development plan, which he claims he must adhere to. This continuation of the past path on one hand and the repetition of his commitment to the Supreme Leader on the other has drawn the attention of his opponents in these two weeks, to the extent that they consider this reformist candidate as merely a pawn for advancing the goals of the Islamic Republic. In any case, he has entered this new phase of his political life relying on himself and not on anything beyond that or 'the same Masoud Pezeshkian he was in previous decades.' Regardless of what role he plays in this unexpected political process, if he wins against Saeed Jalili in the second round and reaches the Pasteur building, he will have a challenging path ahead; especially since Khamenei has recently emphasized to the candidates that whoever reaches the presidency should not appoint their officials from those who 'have even a slight deviation from the revolution.'