How Iran's Khamenei Elevated Pezeshkian to the Presidency

When intelligence officials briefed Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei in May ahead of a snap presidential election, their report was grim: angered by economic hardship and crackdowns on social freedoms, most Iranians planned to boycott the vote and turnout would only be about 13%.
That's when Khamenei decided to plan a carefully orchestrated election, setting the stage for a little-known but trusted moderate, Massoud Pezeshkian, to rise to the presidency in a race that would initially be dominated by hardliners, five people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
Khamenei gathered a handful of his most trusted advisers to discuss his plan in at least three meetings in late May at his residence in a fortified compound in Tehran, according to the five people, who are two hardline sources, a top security official and two insiders close to Khamenei's inner circle.
The supreme leader was concerned low turnout would damage the clerical establishment's credibility and he ordered those present to find a way to steer the election, said one of the people, who was briefed about the meetings.
The election was called after President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash in May. His death upset the plans of many fellow hardliners who wanted him to succeed the 85-year-old Khamenei and triggered a race among hardliners to influence the selection of the next supreme leader.
The meetings at Khamenei's residence included a small group of senior officials and security aides, his close ally and adviser Ali Akbar Velayati, as well as two senior commanders of the Revolutionary Guards.
Khamenei's aim was to preserve Iran amid domestic dissent and heightened tensions with the West and Israel over Gaza, exacerbated by the involvement of Tehran's allies Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, according to the five people, who were briefed in detail about what Khamenei said during the meetings regarding his plan and its goals.
One of the insiders briefed about the meeting said Khamenei believed Iran needed a president who could appeal to different layers of society, but would not challenge the ruling Shiite theocracy.
Several names were floated at the second meeting. Khamenei suggested Pezeshkian as a person who could foster unity among those in power, bridge the gap between the clerical establishment and the people, and ensure a smooth selection process for the next supreme leader, two sources said.
"It was a flawless plan by the supreme leader ... which guaranteed the survival of the Islamic Republic," said Tehran-based pro-reform analyst Saeed Laylaz.
"Pezeshkian will avoid any crisis at home, whether with the nation or the establishment," Laylaz said. "That will allow top leaders to decide about the succession and plan it in a calm atmosphere."
Khamenei's office, the public relations office for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Pezeshkian's office could not be reached for comment. Velayati's office declined to comment.
ELECTION ENGINEERING?
The new president is not expected to usher in any major shift on Iran's nuclear or foreign policy, or its support for militias in the region, but he will be closely involved in selecting the successor to Khamenei, who calls the shots on top state matters.
Pezeshkian's mild profile, the sources said, would appease disgruntled Iranians, ensure domestic stability amid mounting foreign pressure, as well as providing Khamenei with a trusted ally in the eventual succession process.
A regional source close to Iranian circles of power said Pezeshkian's election had been "engineered" to defuse tensions after a wave of popular protests sparked by the death in custody of a young woman in 2022 and stricter curbs on social freedoms imposed by Raisi.
The initial phase of Khamenei's plan was set in motion when then-lawmaker Pezeshkian - encouraged by pragmatic former officials with links to the supreme leader's office - registered to stand in the June 28 election, two sources said.
They said Pezeshkian was unaware of the behind-the-scenes decisions. One source close to him said he didn't even expect to be approved by the Guardian Council, an unelected vetting body of six clerics and six jurists aligned to Khamenei which has banned many moderate and prominent conservative candidates in the past.
Khamenei's plan was designed to appear fair and democratic, so two prominent hardline candidates, former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, were approved by the vetting council, the five people familiar with the matter said.
That meant hardliner votes would likely be split between them, making it harder for both to make it to a run-off.
Jalili belongs to the ultra-hardline camp of "Paydari", which advocates tougher social restrictions, self-reliance, a hawkish foreign policy - and is believed to have already chosen its candidate to succeed Khamenei, said former Iranian lawmaker Noureddin Pirmoazen, a reformer now based in the United States.
A win for Jalili, who opposed the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, would have sent a negative signal to the West as it piles pressure on Tehran over its fast-advancing uranium enrichment program, three analysts and two diplomats told Reuters.
"With the increased likelihood of Donald Trump's return to the White House ... the Islamic Republic needed a moderate figure to keep dialogue with the West open and reduce tensions," said one Western diplomat in the region.
A Guardian Council spokesman said: "It was a transparent and impartial election."
Jalili and Qalibaf could not be reached for comment.
A US State Department spokesperson said: "We can't speculate on specific theories of what may have transpired behind the scenes of Iran's recent presidential election. What we can say with certainty is that elections in Iran are neither free nor fair."
A White House National Security Council spokesperson did not respond directly to questions about the main points of this story but said Washington had no expectation the elections would lead to fundamental change in Iran's direction or more respect for the human rights of its citizens.
THE DESIRED OUTCOME
Pezeshkian, who is an Azeri ethnic minority, won the first round with a core of voters that analysts said was mostly urban middle class or young - groups widely disillusioned by years of security crackdowns.
But voter turnout was just 40%, the lowest for any election in the Islamic Republic, and the election went to a run-off between Pezeshkian and the fervently anti-Western Jalili.
Qalibaf, a security hawk, who has echoed the views of Khamenei on every major issue, such as backing the power of Islamic clerics, finished third.
Fearing Jalili's antagonistic domestic and foreign policy, many Iranians who voted for Qalibaf, or abstained, went for Pezeshkian in the second round on July 5, bumping up the turnover to almost 50% of Iran's 61 million voters.
Ultimately, Khamenei's plan achieved the desired outcome.
Pezeshkian, a 69-year-old heart surgeon, backed by reformists, moderate conservatives and ethnic minorities, won with 54% of the votes.
"I thank the supreme leader. If it weren't for him, I don't think my name would have easily come out of ballot boxes," Pezeshkian said on state TV.
Two sources close to Khamenei said Pezeshkian was referring to an order from the supreme leader to electoral officials to ensure votes were counted properly. The electoral authorities said there were no complaints about vote rigging.
Pezeshkian, loyal to Iran's theocratic rule, has pledged to pursue a pragmatic foreign policy, ease tensions over now-stalled talks to revive a 2015 nuclear deal with major powers, and improve prospects for social liberalization.
He has spoken up for the rights of women and ethnic minorities and criticized the establishment's handling of the death of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian Kurdish woman who died in 2022 while in custody for allegedly violating the Islamic dress code.
"They arrest a girl because a few strands of her hair are showing ... and return her dead body to her family," Pezeshkian said in 2022. "This behavior is unacceptable."
However, many analysts are skeptical about whether Pezeshkian can fulfil all his campaign promises as he has publicly stated that he has no intention of confronting Iran's powerful clerics and security hawks.

In January 1981, Jimmy Carter nodded politely toward Ronald Reagan as the new Republican president thanked the Democrat for his administration's help after Reagan resoundingly defeated Carter the previous November.

Twenty years earlier, after a much closer race, Republican Richard Nixon clasped John F. Kennedy's hand and offered the new Democratic president a word of encouragement.

The US has a long tradition of defeated presidential candidates sharing the inauguration stage with the people who defeated them, projecting to the world the orderly transfer of power. It's a practice that Vice President Kamala Harris will resume on Jan. 20 after an eight-year hiatus.

Only once in the television era — with its magnifying effect on a losing candidate's expression — has a defeated candidate skipped the exercise. That candidate, former President Donald Trump, left for Florida after a failed effort to overturn his loss based on false or unfounded theories of voter fraud.

With Harris watching, Trump is scheduled to stand on the Capitol's west steps and be sworn in for a second term.

Below are examples of episodes that have featured a losing candidate in a rite that Reagan called "nothing short of a miracle."

2001: Al Gore and George W. Bush Democrat Al Gore conceded to Republican George W. Bush after 36 days of legal battling over Florida's ballots ended with a divided Supreme Court ruling to end the recount.

But Gore, the sitting vice president, would join Bush on the west steps of the Capitol a month later as the Texas governor was sworn in. After Bush took the oath, he and Gore shook hands, spoke briefly and smiled before Gore returned to his seat clapping along to the presidential anthem, "Hail to the Chief."

A disappointed Gore accepted the outcome and his role in demonstrating continuity of governance, former Gore campaign spokeswoman Kiki McLean said.

"He may have wished, ‘I wish that was me standing there,’" McLean said. "But I don't think Gore for one minute ever doubted he should be there in his capacity as vice president."

Hillary Clinton smiles wide as she and former President Jimmy Carter, from left, former first lady Rosalynn Carter, former President Bill Clinton, former President George W. Bush, and former first lady Laura Bush wait for the start of the inauguration ceremony to swear President-elect Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 20, 2017. (AP)

2017: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Democrat Hillary Clinton was candid about her disappointment in losing to Trump in 2016, when — like Gore against Bush — she received more votes but failed to win an Electoral College majority. "Obviously, I was crushed," she told Howard Stern on his radio show in 2019.

Calling Inauguration Day "one of the hardest days of my life," Clinton said she planned to attend Trump's swearing-in out of a sense of duty, having been first lady during her husband's presidency from 1993 to 2001. "You put on the best face possible," Clinton said on Stern's show.

2021: Mike Pence (with Trump absent) and Joe Biden Trump four years ago claimed without evidence that his loss to President Joe Biden was marred by widespread fraud. Two weeks earlier, Trump supporters had stormed the Capitol in a violent siege aimed at halting the electoral vote certification.

Instead, then-Vice President Mike Pence was the face of the outgoing administration.

"Sure, it was awkward," Pence's former chief of staff Marc Short said.

Still, Pence and his wife met privately with Biden and his wife to congratulate them in the Capitol before the ceremony, and escorted newly sworn-in Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband out of the Capitol afterward, as tradition had prescribed, Short said.

"There was an appreciation expressed for him by members of both chambers in both parties," he said.

1993: George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton Bush stood on the Capitol's west steps three times for his swearing-in — as vice president twice and in 1989 to be inaugurated as president. He would attend again in 1993 in defeat.

He joined Bill Clinton, the Democrat who beat him, on the traditional walk out onto the east steps. Bush would return triumphantly to the inaugural ceremony eight years later as the father of Clinton's successor, George W. Bush.

1961: Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy Nixon had just lost the 1960 election by fewer than 120,000 votes in what was the closest presidential contest in 44 years. But the departing vice president approached Kennedy with a wide grin, a handshake and an audible "good luck" just seconds after the winning Democrat's swearing-in.

Nixon would have to wait eight years to be sworn in as president, while his losing Democratic opponent — outgoing Vice President Hubert Humphrey — looked on. He was inaugurated a second time after winning reelection in 1972, only to resign after the Watergate scandal.

President-elect Ronald Reagan applauds as outgoing President Jimmy Carter waves to the crowd at Reagan's inaugural ceremony, in Washington, Jan. 20, 1981. (AP Photo, File)

1933: Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt Like Bush, Hoover would attend just one inauguration as a new president before losing to a Democrat four years later. But Democrat Franklin Roosevelt's 1933 swearing-in would not be Hoover's last. Hoover would live for another 31 years, see four more presidents sworn in, and sit in places of honor at the two inaugurations of Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower.

1897: Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison Cleveland, the sitting Democratic president, lost reelection in 1888 while winning more popular votes than former Indiana Sen. Benjamin Harrison. But Cleveland still managed to hold Harrison’s umbrella while the Republican was sworn in during a rainy 1889 inauguration.

Elected to a second, non-consecutive term in 1892, Cleveland, however, would stand solemnly behind William McKinley four years later at the Republican's 1897 inauguration, leaving the presidency that day after losing the 1896 nomination of his own party.

Cleveland was the only president to win two non-consecutive terms until Trump's victory in November.

How Iran's Khamenei Elevated Pezeshkian to the Presidency