Tehran- Iran’s president-elect Masoud Pezeshkian has promised to serve all Iranians in his first remarks after being declared the winner of an election run-off against hardline rival Saeed Jalili.
“The difficult path ahead will not be smooth except with your companionship, empathy, and trust,” reformist Pezeshkian, said in a post on X on Saturday.
Pezeshkian, 69, a cardiac surgeon, got 16.3 million votes to defeat Saeed Jalili, with 13.5 million votes. The result delivered a blow to the conservative faction and was a major victory for the reformist camp, which had been sidelined from politics for the past few years.
Shortly after the announcement of Pezeshkian’s win, Jalili conceded defeat, saying anybody elected by the people must be respected.
The two candidates in the runoff, from opposite ends of Iran’s constrained political spectrum, represented different visions for Iran, with consequences for domestic and regional politics.
“Not only should he be respected, but now we must use all our strength and help him move forward with strength,”
Jalili told state television.
There were scenes of celebration after the results were declared, with small groups of Pezeshkian supporters taking to the streets.
After receiving approval from the country’s top election supervisory body to run in the June 28 election last month, he took to X (formerly Twitter), using ‘For-Iran’ as his campaign slogan.
He introduced his plans, emphasizing the importance of entrusting tasks to experienced and knowledgeable individuals in his administration.
He also announced Javad Zarif, the former Iranian foreign minister, as his choice to head the country’s foreign ministry, while vowing to implement the directives of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
Pezeshkian is expected to assume his duties within 30 days. As he is still a member of parliament from Tabriz, the body will first vote on his resignation.
The country’s ninth elected president will next have to be officially endorsed in a ceremony by the supreme leader after which he will be sworn in at the parliament.
Political analysts say Pezeshkian’s triumph might see the promotion of a pragmatic foreign policy, ease tensions over the now-stalled negotiations with major world powers to revive a 2015 nuclear deal and improve prospects for social liberalisation in Iran.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was among several world leaders to congratulate Pezeshkian, but Western leaders were yet to respond.
In his message to Pezeshkian, Chinese President Xi Jinping said: “I attach great importance to the development of China-Iran relations and am willing to work with the President to lead the China-Iran comprehensive strategic partnership towards deeper advancement”.
The two countries “have a long history of friendly exchanges, and bilateral relations have maintained healthy and stable development … for over half a century,” Xi said, according to state news agency Xinhua.
“Faced with complex regional and international situations, China and Iran have always supported each other, worked together and continued to consolidate strategic mutual trust,” he added.
BIOGRAPHY
Pezeshkian was born Sept. 29, 1954, in Mahabad in northwestern Iran to an Azeri father and a Kurdish mother. He speaks Azeri and has long focused on the affairs of Iran’s vast minority ethnic groups. Like many, he served in the Iran-Iraq war, sending medical teams to the battlefront.
He became a heart surgeon and served as the head of the Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. 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.
Pezeshkian entered politics first as the country’s deputy health minister and later as the health minister under the administration of reformist President Mohammad Khatami.
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 Pezeshkian at the same time honored Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, on one occasion wearing its uniform to parliament. He repeatedly criticized the United States and praised the Guard for shooting down an American drone in 2019, saying it “delivered a strong punch in the mouth of the Americans and proved to them that our country will not surrender.”
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