Support for Pezeshkian: A desire to see a Turk win Iranian presidency

Iran will be holding its presidential election on June 28, a vote that has been brought forward from 2025 following the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in May.

While the ultimate head of the Iranian state is the unelected Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the president holds the second-most powerful position in the country.

Six candidates are running for the presidency:

• Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf: Parliamentary speaker, former mayor of Tehran, and former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) air force commander.
• Saeed Jalili: Expediency Discernment Council member and former chief nuclear negotiator.
• Alireza Zakani: Mayor of Tehran.
• Masoud Pezeshkian: Member of parliament.
• Mostafa Pourmohammadi: Former interior and justice minister.
• Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi: Head of Iran’s Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs.

Views on ethnic discrimination and Pan-Turkism

Masoud Pezeshkian, the only reformist presidential candidate of Turkish descent, has made headlines with his remarks on pan-Turkism.

If there were justice in Iran, no one would be a pan-anything. Turks and other ethnic groups have not been treated justly in Iran

Masoud Pezeshkian

In a recent program, Pezeshkian emphasized the importance of merit and highlighted ethnic and sectarian discrimination in Iran with these words:

“Some Iranians of Turkmen, Kurdish, and Baluch descent are deprived of the status they deserve due to discrimination.”

Elyar Turker’s perspective on Masoud Pezeshkian

To gain more perspective on Masoud Pezeshkian, the Türkiye Today team spoke with Elyar Turker, a South Azerbaijani activist.

Dr. Pezeshkian was born to Turkish parents from Urmia. His father was a state employee in Mahabad, a city in Iran’s West Azerbaijan province, where Dr. Pezeshkian attended primary and secondary school, learning Kurdish in the process.

He studied medicine in Tabriz and is now a cardiologist in Tabriz hospitals. He has been a member of parliament representing Tabriz for the past 16 years and served as Iran’s Deputy Health Minister from 1998 to 2006, later becoming the Health Minister.

Dr. Pezeshkian has witnessed firsthand the insults and injustices directed at the Turkish people and their language in Iran. He has repeatedly condemned these injustices and insults in parliamentary speeches and on Iranian national television. He has also been a voice for other ethnic groups facing discrimination in Iran.

Symbolic support among South Azerbaijani Turks

Turker thinks that the South Azerbaijani Turkish community is aware that Pezeshkian understands their desires and concerns.

However, there is a significant trust issue with the Iranian regime. While almost 50% of South Azerbaijanis are inclined to vote for Pezeshkian, the other half prefers not to vote at all, indicating a deep-seated mistrust.

Most of those who support Pezeshkian do so not because they believe the president can effect major change – given that Supreme Leader Khamenei makes around 80% of the country’s decisions – but because they want to see a Turk win the presidency.

This sentiment is echoed in many comments and discussions on South Azerbaijani platforms, where the predominant sentiment is to vote for Pezeshkian as a symbolic victory for their ethnic group.