Meet Masoud Pezeshkian, 69-year-old heart surgeon who is Iran’s new president – ​​Firstpost

Iran has a new president.

Masoud Pezeshkian defeated Saeed Jalili Masoud in a runoff election made necessary by the death of then-President Ebrahim Raisi in May.

“By obtaining the majority of votes cast on Friday, Pezeshkian has become the next president of Iran,” Iran’s Interior Ministry said.

Pezeshkian received more than 16 million votes and Jalili more than 13 million out of about 30 million votes cast, election authority spokesman Mohsen Eslami said, adding that turnout stood at 49.8 percent.

Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon and lawmaker, is a centrist and a reformist.

But what do we know about Pezeshkian, 69?
Let’s take a closer look:

Pezeshkian was born on September 29, 1954 in Mahabad, northwestern Iran.

Pezeshkian’s father was of Azerbaijani ethnicity and his mother was Kurdish.

He speaks Azeri and has long focused on the affairs of Iran’s vast ethnic minority groups.

During the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, Pezeshkian, a fighter and medic, was tasked with deploying medical teams to the front lines.

He later became a cardiac surgeon and headed the Tabriz University of Medical Sciences.

However, personal tragedy shaped his life after a car accident in 1994 killed his wife, Fatemeh Majidi, and a daughter.

The doctor never remarried and raised his two remaining sons and daughter alone.

Pezeshkian entered politics first as the country’s deputy health minister and then as health minister under the administration of reformist President Mohammad Khatami.

Pezeshkian served as health minister during Khatami’s second term, from 2001 to 2005.

He immediately found himself embroiled in the struggle between hardliners and reformists, attending the autopsy of Zahra Kazemi, a freelance photographer with dual Canadian and Iranian citizenship. She was arrested while taking pictures at a protest in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison. She was tortured and died in custody.

In 2006, Pezeshkian was elected as a member of parliament from Tabriz. He later served as deputy speaker of parliament and supported reformist and moderate causes, although analysts often described him as more of an “independent” than an ally of electoral blocs.

This independent label was also adopted by Pezeshkian in the campaign.

Yet Pezeshkian has also paid tribute to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, a paramilitary group, by once wearing their uniforms to parliament.

He has repeatedly criticized the United States and praised the National Guard for shooting down a U.S. drone in 2019, saying it “dealt a heavy blow to the American people and proved to them that our country will not surrender.”

In 2011, Pezeshkian registered to run for president, but withdrew his candidacy.

In 2021, he and other leading candidates were banned from running by authorities, giving Raisi an easy victory.

In 2022, Pezeshkian asked authorities for clarification on the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died in custody after being arrested for allegedly violating a law restricting women’s dress. Her death sparked months of unrest across the country.

“We will respect the law on the hijab, but there should never be any intrusive or inhumane behavior towards women,” Pezeshkian said after voting in the first round.

At a meeting at Tehran University last month, in response to a question about students imprisoned on charges related to the 2022-23 unrest, Pezeshkian said that “political prisoners are not under my jurisdiction, and if I want to do something, I have no authority.”

With contributions from agencies