SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
A reformist candidate has won the presidential elections in Iran following the death of President Ibrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in May. Masoud Pezeshkian will be Iran's first reformist president in over 20 years, but in a government largely dominated by hard-liners. Mehrzad Boroujerdi is vice provost and dean of the College of Arts, Sciences and Technology at Missouri University of Science and Technology. He joins us now from Rolla, Mo. Thanks so much for being with us.
MEHRZAD BOROUJERDI: Thanks for having me.
SIMON: Were you surprised a reformist was even approved to be on the ballot by the Council of Guardians?
BOROUJERDI: Yes, absolutely so. The reformists had nominated three candidates, and one of them was Mr. Pezeshkian, and they had made their participation in the election contingent upon approval of one of these three candidates. And the Guardian Council, which is the body responsible for vetting candidates, surprised everyone by including him in the final list of five candidates to stand for election.
SIMON: Did they underestimate his appeal?
BOROUJERDI: Apparently so. It's very interesting that it seems like the Iranian public has become sophisticated enough that every time they have even a small chance to engage in protest vote and vote for someone who leans more toward the reformist moderate wing of the political spectrum, they opt for that person, and that seems to be what has happened here, too.
SIMON: What issues do you think are important to Iranian voters now as you can read them?
BOROUJERDI: I think it's fair to say that, by far, the most important issue confronting average citizen is the economic situation in the country. It's a fact that sanctions have hurt ordinary citizens. Iranian currency has devalued a lot. Unemployment rate is around 8%, inflation over 40%. Economists argue that for a young couple to be able to own an apartment or a house, they have to be saving money for some 45 years before they are able to do so. And so I think the combined impact of sanctions as well as managerial ineptitude on the part of the government has created this economic mess in the country. So that's priority number one.
But in addition, Mr. Pezeshkian is elected on the heels of the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom movement, where issues, such as relaxation of hijab laws, was quite important. We are dealing with a society in which I think the public is really ahead of the politicians, and, you know, politicians are trying to, you know, play catch-up game. And Mr. Pezeshkian, who - I will describe him as sort of the Miller Lite version of a reformist, is going to have a tough time ahead of him.
SIMON: Well, where will the opposition come from? Or is that a naive question?
BOROUJERDI: Well, I think the opposition will come from the fact that basically all the major levers of power in the country are in the hands of the hard-liners. They dominate the current sitting Parliament that was just elected in March of this year. They dominate the Guardian Council, which is basically the body that needs to approve any legislation passed by the Parliament. The National Security Council, again, is heavily dominated by the Conservatives. So Mr. Pezeshkian will really have an uphill battle.
SIMON: So he's the president, but if I might put it this way, Mr. Pezeshkian is only the president.
BOROUJERDI: Exactly. In the Iranian political system, the president is not the commander-in-chief of the military establishment. And, you know, we have the Revolutionary Guards that are really taking their cues from the supreme leader.
SIMON: At the same time, I think it - was it in 2007? - you wrote that the genie was out of the bottle when it came to reformist ideas in Iran. Are those ideas bottled up as quickly as they come out?
BOROUJERDI: Not really. You see, I think what has happened in Iran is that we had the 2009 Green Movement - right? - where there was a contested presidential election and serious concerns about vote-rigging. On the heels of that, we have had sporadic protests regarding lifting of subsidies, price of petrol, crackdown on university campuses and, of course, the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. I think these set of events testified to the fact for a lot of Iranians basically, they have given up on the notion of wanting the system - or the regime, as they call it - to self regulate itself and reform itself. So they are saying, you know, we need to overthrow this regime.
But the fact of the matter is, in my view, as we saw with the 2022 uprising, that the material conditions is not there to change the balance of power, right? And as such, in this situation where you are really facing a poverty-of-options scenario, the reformists come forward with the argument that conditions are not ripe for overthrowing the regime. So what do we do next? Do we sit on the sidelines, or do we try to work within the confine of the current system and introduce incremental change, you know, here and there. I think this election clearly demonstrated that we have a divided polity.
In the first round, there were 60% of the public that did not participate in the election at all, which was, you know, a serious wake-up call for the government. On the other hand, we saw in the second round that 50% of the public did take part in the election and allowed Mr. Pezeshkian to come out victorious.
SIMON: Mehrzad Boroujerdi is vice provost and dean of the College of Arts, Sciences and Education at Missouri University of Science and Technology. Thank you so much for being with us.
BOROUJERDI: Thanks for having me.
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