Hope & scepticism in Iran

A reformist becoming President will test the nation

The victory of a self-styled reformist and wild card candidate, Masoud Pezeshkian, in Iran’s runoff vote for the presidential elections has been greeted by mild hope but more scepticism around the world. Mr Pezeshkian, 69, a former heart surgeon, beat hardliner Saeed Jalili in an election necessitated by the death of sitting President Ebrahim Raisi in an air crash in May. He has hit the right notes in his acceptance speech by promising not to abandon the Iranian people “in the difficult road ahead” and seeking their cooperation. That road includes managing an economy that has been feeling the sting of sanctions with hyperinflation and high youth unemployment plus the country’s complicated role in West Asian conflicts.

The rejection of Mr Jalili is being seen in some quarters as a message to the country’s supreme leader for a more liberal regime. But the abysmally low turnout, with a little over half of Iran’s electorate of 61 million choosing not to exercise their franchise, makes it unclear whether Mr Pezeshkian is truly the popular choice. He has also indicated a shift towards diplomatic resolution rather than proxy war and, critically, an outreach towards Western powers in terms of reviving the 2015 nuclear pact.

This pragmatism must be weighed against the realities of Iran’s power structures. As with Pakistan, real power lies in a power nexus of unelected institutions. In Iran, power is wielded by a coterie of unelected clerics led by the 85-year-old supreme guide, head of state, and supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose hardline Islamism is enforced by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a formidable paramilitary organisation that parallels the conventional military forces and wields considerable clout both internally and in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Palestine. In this configuration, the President is mostly the executive arm of policies laid down by the ayatollah. The geopolitical backdrop against which Mr Pezeshkian assumes power does not point to a significant shift. For one, there is Iran’s visible tilt towards China with the tightening of the sanctions regime. Beijing has not only become the biggest buyer of the country’s oil and gas but also played the lead role in the diplomatic rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Tehran has also aligned with Beijing in supporting Russia diplomatically and militarily since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This apart, any prospect of reviving the Obama-era nuclear deal will flounder on the likely return to the White House of Donald Trump, who repudiated it in his first term.

For New Delhi, Mr Pezeshkian’s election holds only upsides in a relationship that has remained cordial through many geopolitical vicissitudes. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the first to congratulate Mr Pezeshkian in a post on X after his election. The two countries have forged ahead in strengthening regional connectivity through the International North-South Transport Corridor, connecting India to Russia. Recently, India signed a 10-year agreement to develop and operate Chabahar Port on Iran’s eastern flank. The port holds the prospect of access to Central Asian markets. This deep engagement may be tested by India’s tacit support to the Israeli regime in the war against Hamas. But pragmatism has always been the leitmotif of relations between the two nations so far.