A man holds a poster of Massoud Pezeshkian in Tehran on July 6, 2024. (Credit: AFP)
The campaign slogans of President Masoud Pezeshkian to promote a positive discrimination approach and include ethnic and religious minorities in the next government had raised hope for change among some reformists.The fact that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei validated his candidacy implied that his victory did not pose a danger to the establishment. But the reformist had strongly opposed the Hijab enforcement Noor plan, eager to show that his accession to power could stop the intensification of the fundamentalists’ control. However, Pezeshkian seems to have silenced this enthusiasm, by leaving some of his government’s key portfolios in the hands of the regime’s hardliners. In particular, ultraconservative Intelligence minister Esmail Khatib, who had overseen the repression and mass arrests during the 2022 national uprising, following...
The campaign slogans of President Masoud Pezeshkian to promote a positive discrimination approach and include ethnic and religious minorities in the next government had raised hope for change among some reformists.The fact that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei validated his candidacy implied that his victory did not pose a danger to the establishment. But the reformist had strongly opposed the Hijab enforcement Noor plan, eager to show that his accession to power could stop the intensification of the fundamentalists’ control. However, Pezeshkian seems to have silenced this enthusiasm, by leaving some of his government’s key portfolios in the hands of the regime’s hardliners. In particular, ultraconservative Intelligence minister Esmail Khatib, who had overseen the repression and mass arrests during the 2022 national uprising,...