BREAKUPBREAKUP,
Pezeshkian would win the runoff with 16.3 million votes to Jalili’s 13.5 million, according to reports.
Iranian heart surgeon and MP Masoud Pezeshkian, who has vowed to reach out to the West, has won the second round of the presidential election, beating his rival Saeed Jalili, the Interior Ministry said.
” By winning [the] “By a majority of votes cast on Friday, Pezeshkian became the next president of Iran,” the ministry said.
The Associated Press (AP) news agency reported that a vote count proposed by authorities gave Pezeshkian the victory with 16.3 million votes to Jalili’s 13.5 million after Friday’s election.
Pezeshkian’s supporters took to the streets of Tehran and other cities before dawn Saturday to celebrate his increasing lead over Jalili, the AP reported.
Videos on social media showed Pezeshkian’s supporters dancing in the streets of many cities and towns across the country and motorists honking their horns to celebrate his victory.
Turnout in the election was about 50 percent in a tight race between Pezeshkian, the only moderate among the four initial candidates who has pledged to open Iran to the world, and former nuclear negotiator Jalili, who is a vocal advocate of deepening Iran’s ties with Russia and China.
Friday’s runoff follows a June 28 poll with historically low turnout, when more than 60% of Iranian voters abstained from voting in a snap election for a successor to Ebrahim Raisi after he died in a helicopter crash.
Political analysts say Pezeshkian’s triumph could foster a pragmatic foreign policy, ease tensions over now-stalled negotiations with major powers to revive the 2015 nuclear deal and improve prospects for social liberalization and political pluralism in Iran.
However, many Iranian voters are skeptical that Pezeshkian will be able to deliver on his campaign promises, with the former health minister publicly stating that he has no intention of taking on Iran’s powerful elite of clerics and security hawks.
Both presidential candidates have promised to revive the struggling economy, undermined by mismanagement and sanctions reimposed since 2018 after the United States, under President Donald Trump, abandoned the nuclear deal.
