The second round of Iran's presidential election ended with moderate candidate Masoud Pezeshkian winning on Saturday, receiving more than 16 million votes out of more than 30 million.
Iranians voted on Friday in a second round of a presidential election pitting Pezeshkian, who advocates openness to the West, against conservative former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.
Pezeshkian pledged to open Iran to the world and provide the "freedoms that the people crave," and videos on social media showed his supporters celebrating in the streets of several cities and towns across the country and motorists honking their horns in celebration of his victory.
From Doctor to Politician
Pezeshkian was born on September 29, 1954 in Mahabad to a family of Turkish-Iranian origin.
He graduated from Tabriz University School of Medicine, and served as a combatant and doctor in the Iran-Iraq War between 1980 and 1988. After the war, Pezeshkian continued his education as a general surgeon at Tabriz University of Health Sciences.
Pezeshkian received his subspecialty in cardiac surgery from Iran University of Health Sciences in 1993, and later became a cardiac surgeon and served as the president of Tabriz University of Health Sciences between 1994 and 1999.
His political career began with his appointment as Deputy Minister of Health in 1997, during the era of former President Mohammad Khatami, and then he was appointed Minister of Health in 2001 and remained in this position until 2005.
Pezeshkian entered the parliament as a representative of Tabriz in the country's general elections in 2008 and has continued his membership as a representative of Tabriz since then. In 2016, he served as the deputy speaker of the Iranian parliament for 4 years.
Pezeshkian had applied to run in the 2013 presidential elections in Iran, but later withdrew his candidacy. In the 2021 elections, the Guardian Council rejected his candidacy in the elections.
"We will give friendship to everyone"
Pezeshkian, the ninth elected president of Iran, said after his victory, "We will give friendship to everyone, I will extend the hand of friendship to everyone, and I will involve everyone in the development of the country," describing the competing candidates in the elections as his brothers.
According to official data, Pezeshkian won 16,384,403 votes, while his conservative rival Saeed Jalili won 13,538,179 votes, after counting 30,530,157 votes. At the same time, the turnout in the elections reached 49.8%, which is higher than in the first round of the Iranian presidential race.
Pezeshkian has won the support of other moderate and reformist figures during his campaign, most notably former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who brokered Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers that saw sanctions lifted in exchange for significant curbs on its nuclear programme.
The new president calls for easing tense relations with the West, economic reform, social liberalization and political pluralism, having previously called for “constructive relations” with the United States and European countries in order to “bring Iran out of its isolation.”