Iran’s new president is Khamenei's play for fresh start on global stage

By Massoumeh Torfeh

This Sunday, Iran's president-elect Masoud Pezeshkian is due to be endorsed by the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Days later on July 30, he'll then be officially sworn in by the country's parliament.

It is hardly surprising that Pezeshkian, a 69-year-old heart surgeon, won the presidential elections in Iran. Contrary to most analysis, his success does not indicate the return of a reformist era.

Rather, his election is the beginning of a new strategy by Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khomeini, the centrepiece of which is a face-saving remedy to bring Iran out of international isolation and ignite more internal public participation in politics.

Change is ahead

Pezeshkian was barred from running in the presidential race in 2021 by the Guardian Council, a body made up of 12 clerics and jurists that hold significant power in Iran.

The council vets candidates' religious and revolutionary credentials and has barred many prominent reformists and moderates from standing in recent elections.

The fact that Pezeshkian was approved by the council during this newest round of elections is the first clear indication of a shift spearheaded by the Supreme Leader Khamenei.

The move was in fact part of a three-pronged strategy to bring voters back to the ballot box, replenish the badly damaged legitimacy of the regime especially amongst the young and minorities, and to devise a face-saving appearance of moderation to help Iran's return to "constructive engagement" with the West and to end the heavy economic and banking sanctions.

If this was not the case, the Supreme Leader Khamenei would not have demanded the parliament's full support of the new president in his very first speech after the elections.

"I stress that I want full cooperation in the parliament with the president-elect," said Khamenei . "If he is successful in improving the economy, the international policy and cultural policy, then his success is all our success."

Pundits predicted the lowest turnout ever in the elections and despite all efforts to rekindle enthusiasm, 60 percent of the population did not take part in the first round. But the trick of using a reformist candidate paid off and in the second round, 50 percent turnout was sufficient to call it official.

Low turnout was a great cause for concern for Iran, which gets its legitimacy from its power to muster crowds when needed.

By the same token, Pezeshkian is not really a reformist and his close cooperation with the centrist former foreign minister Jawad Zarif who reappeared out of the blue on the political scene, only indicates the political direction of Iran in the next few years.

True that Pezeshkian was in two reformist cabinets between 1997 and 2005. But in the last 20 years as a member of a hardline parliament, he has moved to the right. His close bond with the former foreign minister Zarif, calling him his guru and kissing his hands in public, is witness to this change of heart.

Zarif with vast experience in negotiating with the West has been chosen to head the Committee for Internal and External Policy, which is tasked with proposing the most suitable ministers for those posts. This and the process of approval of all cabinet members promises to be an arduous task.

Global relations

In an article this month titled "My message to the new world," Pezeshkian said he plans to pursue "an opportunity-driven" foreign policy and create "balance in relations with all countries."

He made it clear that Iran's closest allies are China and Russia, but stressed that "constructive engagement with the world" was part of the platform he ran on.

United States Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is already seizing the opportunity to change the tone to resolve the nuclear issue "through diplomacy." The result of US elections in November will be interesting to watch. Yet Iran could work with either candidate.

Of course, former president Donald Trump may be more difficult to tackle as the person who unilaterally and illegally opted out of the nuclear deal (JCPOA) in 2018 and boasted about the killing of Iran's top Quds Force Commander, Qassem Soleimani, in 2020.

In any case, the groundwork has already been laid. Iran's late foreign minister Hossein Amir-abdolahian has already set up secret talks with the Americans, with mediation from Oman and Qatar. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in conversation with Pezeshkian has also offered to mediate on the revival of JCPOA.

On Europe too, Pezeshkian leaves the door open: "I look forward to engaging in constructive dialogue with European countries to set our relations on the right path." He is likely to find solutions through countries like Ireland and Spain who have committed to a Palestinian state.

A uniting force?

The protests took Iran by storm over the last two years began when a young Kurdish girl, Mahsa Amini, was killed while in police custody. It brought the mostly Sunni Kurdish community to direct confrontation with the central government and the supreme leader.

Meanwhile, Pezeshkian's Turkic origins may help in tensions brewing with the Republic of Azerbaijan. Iran has accused Azerbaijan of inciting separatist sentiment in Iran's Azerbaijan province.

The late president Ebrahim Raissi, who was killed in a helicopter crash, died while heading to the border area to sign an agreement of friendship and cooperation with Azerbaijan's president, Ilham Aliyev, to end the tension.

Why the new approach?

There are three main reasons for the Ayatollah's new strategy.

Firstly, the ruling clique is increasingly concerned about the lack of political participation and low turnout in elections. The elite get their legitimacy from the power to muster crowds.

"You should make every effort to increase voter turnout, whether this is in university settings, workplaces, family environments, and other similar places," said Khamenei in a recent speech.

Secondly, the impact of sanctions has been increasingly biting at people's buying power, with the high exchange rate leading to frustration and anger.

This is true particularly amongst the young, modern and educated Iranians who have at the same time been challenging the regime and the supreme leader over its strict dress code. The heavy crackdowns have not silenced the demonstrators.

Thirdly, just in the last decade Iran has lost many of its high-level political, clerical and military elite. To name a few, the killing of Soleimani in 2020 by the United States had the most impact.

But this was then followed by the attack on Iran's top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, and more recently during the war in Gaza, several top IRGC commanders were killed in Syria and Jordan. Additionally, the late foreign minister Amir-Abdolahian was killed in the helicopter crash together with President Ebrahim Raissi.

These leaders had made headway in rekindling relations with the Arab states, especially with Saudi Arabia with help from China.

As such, the ruling establishment has taken too many blows coupled with several sabotage attacks on Iran's northern, southern and eastern borders. The presidency of Pezeshkian under the appearance of reform offers the required face-saving mechanism to adjust where necessary.

The author, Dr. Massoumeh Torfeh, is a research associate at the London School of Economics and the School of Oriental and African Studies, focusing on Iran. She was formerly a UN spokesperson and BBC journalist, and has written a book on Iran-UK relations.

Disclaimer: The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinions, viewpoints and editorial policies of TRT Afrika.

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