Reformist Masoud Pezeshkian Wins Runoff Presidential Election In Iran

Masoud Pezeshkian, a reformist and former Health Minister of Iran won the 14th presidential election by beating his rival, hardliner Islamist ideologue Saeed Jalili. Masoud Pezeshkian got 16.3 million votes of the total 30 million votes in the runoff.

Voting for the Iran presidential runoff commenced on yesterday morning, with 50 percent voters turnout. In the first round Iran saw a record-low turnout since the Islamic revolution in 1979 amid widespread discontent.

 

During his campaign, Pezeshkian has promised to open up Iran to the world and negotiate a nuclear deal with Western countries to remove sanctions and improve the economy. Jalili has



campaigned on hardliner views and advocated to deepen Iran’s ties to Russia and China.

 

Earlier, Iran went to polls on 28th of June, in which Pezeshkian garnered 42.6 per cent of the total votes, while Jalili got 38.8 per cent. Since, none of the candidates were able to cross the 50 per cent mark required to win the presidential race, a runoff was scheduled to elect the new President of Iran.

 

Iran’s 14th presidential election, which had initially been set for 2025, was rescheduled following the unexpected death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash on 19th May, this year.