Reformist Masoud Pezeshkian wins Iranian presidential runoff

Shafaq News/ On Saturday, reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian won the second round of the fourteenth Iranian presidential election, defeating conservative candidate Saeed Jalili, according to official media reports.

Election officials have counted over 30 million votes so far, with Pezeshkian receiving around 17 million votes and Jalili receiving more than 13 million votes, according to results published by the Ministry of Interior.

Mohsen Eslami, the spokesperson for the Iranian election committee, stated that Masoud Pezeshkian received 16,384,403 votes, while Saeed Jalili garnered 13,538,179 votes, after counting 30,530,157 votes from polling stations inside the country and abroad.

The turnout for the second round of the presidential election was 49.8 percent, according to the Iranian news agency IRNA.

In his first statement, President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian affirmed that "We will extend a hand of friendship to everyone. We are all people of this country."

He added, "We must seek the help of everyone for the advancement of the country," as reported by Agence France-Presse.

The first round of the presidential election was held on June 28, with four candidates: Saeed Jalili, Masoud Pezeshkian, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and Mostafa Pourmohammadi. None of the candidates secured an absolute majority, necessitating a second round between the two candidates with the highest number of votes, Pezeshkian and Jalili.