Iranian presidential candidate Saeed Jalili looks on during the run-off presidential election between him and Masoud Pezeshkian, in Tehran, Iran, July 5, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

i24 News – Iran’s new president is Masoud Pezeshkian, a low-profile moderate who has pledged to open the Islamic Republic to the world and deliver long-sought freedoms. The interior ministry confirmed on Saturday that he won the country’s run-off presidential vote.

.@JasonMBrodsky: The reformist and the hardliner candidates in Iran are two sides of the same corrupt, unreformable and repressive coin. Khamenei is calling the shots whoever is 'selected' as the president. pic.twitter.com/0m9g6TDGg8

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) July 5, 2024

The participation was around 50% in a tight race between Pezeshkian, the sole moderate in the original field of four candidates, and hardline former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, a staunch advocate of deepening ties with Russia and China.

Friday’s run-off followed a June 28 ballot with historically low turnout, when over 60% of Iranian voters abstained from the snap election for a successor to Ebrahim Raisi, following his death in a helicopter crash.

While the election will have little impact on the Islamic Republic’s policies, the president is expected to be closely involved in selecting the successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s 85-year-old Supreme Leader, who calls all the shots on top matters of state.

Pezeshkian has aligned himself with other moderate and reformist figures. His main advocate has been former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who reached Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers that saw sanctions lifted in exchange for the atomic program being drastically curtailed.