MOSCOW, July 1. /TASS/. Iran will continue to prioritize efforts to overcome the negative consequences of Western sanctions and get them removed, regardless of who wins the presidential election, said Mahmoud Shoori, member of the board of directors of the Tehran-based Institute of Iranian-Eurasian Studies.
Iran held an early presidential election on June 28, after the previous president, Ebrahim Raisi, was killed in a helicopter crash. None of the four candidates was able to garner more than 50% of the votes needed to win in the first round. Massoud Pezeshkian, a former health minister, and Saeed Jalili, the representative of Iran's spiritual leader in the Supreme National Security Council, will compete in a run-off on July 5. They collected 42.5% and 38.6% of the vote in the first round.
"Whoever of the two candidates comes to power will face serious challenges in both foreign and domestic policy. Sanctions will continue to be the most important problem, namely, how the next president will deal with their negative consequences. In general, the candidates have little leverage to influence this situation," the analyst said.
He added that if Jalili comes to power, he will have better relations with the parliament, where the majority of seats are held by conservatives. Any bills coming from the potential reformist Pezeshkian government could encounter resistance in the legislature.
"It is wrong to think that if Jalili comes to power, Tehran will not hold talks about the lifting of sanctions, and if Pezeshkian comes, he will continue them. I think the decision to negotiate with the West about sanctions was made at the highest level of the entire Iranian polity. However, each of the candidates will use different tools to fight sanctions," Shoori said.
The political analyst said the candidates will have widely diverging views on Iran's foreign policy.
"Pezeshkian has almost no experience in foreign policy. That’s why it is likely that [Foreign Minister in President Hassan Rouhani's government] Mohammad Javad Zarif would handle Iran's relations with foreign countries. I think Pezeshkian will continue the foreign policy course laid down by Rouhani: He will try to balance relations with both the West and the East."
Pezeshkian was health minister in Mohammad Khatami's reformist government from 2001 to 2005 and has been a member of parliament since 2008. During his election campaign, he said the way to lift anti-Iran sanctions would be to restore a deal on Tehran's nuclear program through talks with the US.
Jalili joined the Supreme National Security Council in 2002 and was appointed deputy foreign minister for European and American affairs in 2005. From 2007 to 2013, under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is remembered for his hardline policy toward the West, Jalili served as secretary of the Security Council and at the same time as chief negotiator on Tehran's nuclear program. He is known for his skepticism of the nuclear deal negotiated by the Rouhani government. Since 2013, Jalili has officially represented Iran's spiritual leader in the Supreme National Security Council.