Iran’s new hope: a cardiologist president

Mr Pezeshkian’s election certainly heralds change. After four decades of five clerics and one hizbullahi (a staunch supporter of the regime), ordinary Iranians at last have a president who looks and speaks like them. He articulates the concerns of the increasingly impoverished middle class. He comes from the marginalised north-west. He ran the university hospital in Tabriz, its main city, which he represented in parliament for 16 years. He is said to detest the capital, Tehran. The furniture in the flat he keeps there is tacky and unloved.