However, personal tragedy shaped his life after a 1994 car crash killed his wife, Fatemeh Majidi, and a daughter. The doctor never remarried and raised his remaining two sons and a daughter alone. The story has parallels with the tragedy faced by US President Joe Biden, whose first wife and baby daughter were killed in a car accident in 1972. Pezeshkian entered politics first as the country’s deputy health minister and later as the health minister under the administration of reformist Iranian president Mohammad Khatami. Almost immediately, he found himself involved in the struggle between hard-liners and reformists, attending the autopsy of Zahra Kazemi, a freelance photographer who held both Canadian and Iranian citizenship. She was detained while taking pictures at a protest at Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, was tortured and died in custody. In 2006, Pezeshkian was elected as a lawmaker representing Tabriz. He later served as a deputy parliament speaker and backed reformist and moderate causes, though analysts often described him more as an “independent” than allied with the voting blocs. That independent label also has been embraced by Pezeshkian in the campaign. Yet, at the same time, Pezeshkian honored Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, on one occasion wearing its uniform to parliament.
