Reformist Iran & Hungarian Peace
Reformist Iran & Hungarian Peace
Pezeshkian presidency will mark a departure from hardline President Ebrahim Raisi’s presidency. HungarianPrime Minister Victor Orban comments at press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin
Masoud Pezeshkian wins the Iranian presidential Election
By Critical Threats
Moderate politician Masoud Pezeshkian won the Iranian presidential runoff election on July 5. Iranian media reported that Pezeshkian received over 16 million votes, while his opponent, ultraconservative hardliner Saeed Jalili, received approximately 13.5 million votes. Pezeshkian and Jalili won approximately 10.4 million and 9.5 million votes respectively in the first round of voting on June 28. The Iranian Election Headquarters announced that voter turnout in the runoff presidential election was 49.8 percent, marking an approximately 10 percent increase from the first round of elections on June 28. Pezeshkian will be inaugurated on an unspecified date between July 22 to August 5. Pezeshkian’s presidency will mark a departure from hardline President Ebrahim Raisi’s presidency. Pezeshkian has repeatedly criticized Raisi’s presidency in recent weeks.
Pezeshkian previously served as a senior health official in the reformist Mohammad Khatami administration from 2000-2005 and as a parliamentarian from 2008 to 2024. Pezeshkian hails from Mahabad, West Azerbaijan Province, and is fluent in Azeri and Kurdish. Pezeshkian is trained as a physician and served as a medic during the Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988. He later served in the reformist Khatami administration as health and medical education minister.[x] Pezeshkian is currently a parliamentarian representing East Azerbaijan Province and has held this role for 16 years.[xi] He served as a deputy parliament speaker in 2016. Pezeshkian was disqualified from running in the 2021 presidential election, making his recent qualification and subsequent presidential win noteworthy.
Pezeshkian will likely attempt to pursue nuclear negotiations with the West, although it is unclear to what extent Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei will permit him to do so. Pezeshkian called for increasing international engagement with Western actors and endorsed a return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) throughout his campaign.[xiv] Mohammad Javad Zarif, the foreign affairs minister under reformist president Hassan Rouhani who helped negotiate the JCPOA in 2015, has played a prominent role in Pezeshkian’s campaign, suggesting that Pezeshkian is committed to resuming negotiations. Pezeshkian separately supported resolving issues with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The FATF blacklisted Iran in February 2020 for failing to implement anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing policies.[xvii] The Supreme Leader has previously expressed foreign policy and nuclear views that promote domestic production over economic engagement with the West, making it unclear to what extent Khamenei will permit Pezeshkian to engage with Western actors. Khamenei has also indirectly criticised Pezeshkian’s campaign and has called on him to “continue [former hardline president Ebrahim] Raisi’s path” in his presidency.
Pezeshkian’s presidency is unlikely to generate meaningful changes within the regime.Pezeshkian supports regime policies like mandatory veiling. Pezeshkian has previously critiqued the Noor Plan—a 2024 Iranian law enforcement plan that often violently enforces veiling—but continues to support mandatory veiling within Iran and has argued that the regime must reform the way it educates girls so that they do not question the need to veil. Pezeshkian has also boasted about his role in enforcing mandatory veiling in hospitals and universities shortly after the Islamic Revolution. Pezeshkian has repeatedly reiterated his commitment to enforcing Khamenei’s policies throughout his campaign. The president also lacks the authority to pursue policies different from the supreme leader’s edicts, even if the president aims to pursue policies separate from the supreme leader.
Pezeshkian’s presidency suggests that Khamenei prioritized the regime’s legitimacy over his individual legacy in this instance. Khamenei implicitly criticised Pezeshkian’s campaign policies and espoused Jalili’s nuclear and foreign policy views in a speech on June 25, which suggested that Khamenei preferred Jalili over Pezeshkian. Khamenei previously paved the way for his preferred candidate, Ebrahim Raisi, to win the August 2021 presidential election. The fact that Khamenei allowed Pezeshkian to win the election suggests that Khamenei prioritised preserving the Islamic Republic’s veneer as a “religious democracy” over installing a president who more closely aligns with his hardline stances on domestic and foreign issues.
It is particularly noteworthy that Khamenei allowed Pezeshkian to win given that the next Iranian president may oversee Khamenei’s succession. Khamenei is currently 85 years old and has almost certainly begun to consider who will succeed him. That Khamenei allowed Pezeshkian to win suggests that he believes Pezeshkian could maintain order in the regime and Iranian society during a potential succession crisis. It also suggests that Khamenei prioritizes regime survival over having a president in power whose views and policies directly align with his own.
Khamenei may have calculated that manipulating the July 5 election results could stoke widespread unrest. The regime previously engineered the election results between reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi and hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009, which galvanised a months-long anti-regime protest wave. The regime might be particularly wary of public unrest given that it recently suppressed the 2022-2023 Mahsa Amini movement and that much of the Iranian population still holds sociocultural, political, and economic grievances against the regime.
Key Takeaways:
Iran: Moderate politician Massoud Pezeshkian won the Iranian presidential runoff election on July 5. Pezeshkian’s presidency is unlikely to generate meaningful changes within the regime. It is noteworthy, however, that Khamenei allowed Pezeshkian to win given that the next Iranian president may oversee Khamenei’s succession.
Ceasefire Negotiations: Anonymous Israeli officials said that the main sticking point in ceasefire negotiations centers around Article 14, which states that the United States, Egypt, and Qatar will “make every effort” to ensure negotiations end in an agreement and that a ceasefire is held as negotiations continue. Hamas seeks to remove the phrase “make every effort,” leaving only “ensure.”
Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban (retranslated):
Ladies and gentlemen,
Mr President,
Today I met with the President of Russia for the 11th time. This meeting is special because it is being held at the time of war, when Europe badly needs peace. Peace is what Europe needs most of all. We see the struggle for peace as the main task for the next six months of our European Council presidency.
I have told Mr President that Europe received the greatest impetus for development during peaceful decades. We in Europe have now been living in the shadow of war for two and a half years. This is causing enormous difficulties in Europe. We cannot feel safe, we see pictures of destruction and suffering. This war has already started affecting our economic growth and our competitiveness.
In general, as I have already told Mr President, Europe needs peace. Over the past two years we have realised that we will not achieve peace without diplomacy, without channels of communication. Peace will not come by itself, we need to work for it.
I was just discussing with Mr President today the ways to achieve peace. I wanted to know what the shortest road to end the war is. I wanted to hear Mr President’s opinion on three important questions, and I heard his opinion. What does he think about the current peace initiatives? What does he think about a ceasefire and peace talks, and in what succession can they be carried out? And the third thing that interested me was Mr President’s vision of Europe after the war. I am thankful to Mr President for this open and honest conversation.
Ladies and gentlemen.
In the recent two and a half years, there are practically no countries left that could contact both one and the other opposing parties. Hungary is just one of such few countries. This is why I was in Kiev this week, and this is why I am in Moscow now.
From my experience I understood that the positions are poles apart. Very many steps are needed to be done to become closer to the end of the war. However, we have made the most important step – we have established contact. And I will continue to work towards this end.
Thank you.
Question: How did Mr Zelensky react to your ceasefire proposal? What did he say to that?
Viktor Orban: I told that to the President of Russia.
Question: Mr President, could you tell us?
Vladimir Putin: No.
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