(6 Jul 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Dubai, United Arab Emirates – 6 July 2024
1. SOUNDBITE (English) Jon Gambrell, The Associated Press:
"The Iranian lawmaker and former heart surgeon Masoud Pezeshkian has won Iran’s presidential runoff election. He got some 16 million votes compared to the hard-line contender Saeed Jalili, who got some 13 million votes. Now overall in this election, Iran says 30 million people cast ballots in this election that was not monitored by any internationally recognized group. This comes after we saw a historic low turnout in the first round of elections and Iran long has had a feeling that the legitimacy of its theocracy is based on turnout, which made the turnout in this election that much more important. It was still under 50%, and that’s still on the historic low side in Iranian polls. Now, Pezeshkian is not anyone who’s going to really rock the boat in Iran. However, he has run on a campaign that said he would see less enforcement of Iran’s mandatory hijab after massive protests that were sparked in 2022 over the death of Mahsa Amini. He also says that he wants to reach out to the West and potentially reach a new nuclear deal with world powers. However, Pezeshkian long has acknowledged that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei remains at the top of Iran’s government, and he also has never held any really sensitive security posts or nuclear negotiation posts. So it remains unclear just how much of an effect Pezeshkian will have. Meanwhile, a lot of Iranians are watching the upcoming presidential election in the U.S. that could see President Donald Trump returned who pulled America out of that nuclear deal. So as of right now, Iran is watching to see what Pezeshkian is going to do and how the rest of the world is going to react."
++ENDS ON SOUNDBITE++
STORYLINE:
Reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian won Iran’s runoff presidential election Saturday, besting hard-liner Saeed Jalili by promising to reach out to the West and ease enforcement on the country’s mandatory headscarf law after years of sanctions and protests squeezing the Islamic Republic.
Pezeshkian promised no radical changes to Iran’s Shiite theocracy in his campaign and long has held Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the final arbiter of all matters of state in the country.
But even Pezeshkian’s modest aims will be challenged by an Iranian government still largely held by hard-liners, the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, and Western fears over Tehran enriching uranium to near-weapons-grade levels.
A vote count offered by authorities put Pezeshkian as the winner with 16.3 million votes to Jalili’s 13.5 million in Friday’s election.
Overall, Iran’s Interior Ministry said 30 million people voted in an election held without internationally recognized monitors.
Pezeshkian’s win still sees Iran at a delicate moment, with tensions high in the Mideast over the Israel-Hamas war, Iran’s advancing nuclear programme, and a looming election in the United States that could put any chance of a detente between Tehran and Washington at risk.
His victory also wasn’t a rout of Jalili, meaning he’ll have to carefully navigate Iran’s internal politics as the doctor has never held a sensitive, high-level security post.
Production by Jon Gambrell
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