TEHRAN: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday officially endorsed reformist Masoud Pezeshkian as the Islamic Republic’s ninth president following early elections that ended earlier this month.
The new president should be sworn in before parliament on Tuesday.
The confirmation ceremony was held in the capital Tehran in the presence of senior Iranian officials and foreign diplomats and was broadcast on state television.
Pezeshkian won a runoff election on July 5 against ultraconservative Saeed Jalili to replace President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May.
The 69-year-old reformer secured more than 16 million votes, or about 54 percent of the roughly 30 million ballots cast.
Voter turnout in the second round of the election reached 49.8 percent, according to Iran’s election authority, up from a record low of about 40 percent in the first round.
Jalili attended Sunday’s ceremony, as did former moderate President Hassan Rouhani, who supported Pezeshkian’s presidential bid along with Iran’s main reformist coalition.
Pezeshkian was the only candidate representing Iran’s reformist camp to be allowed to run in the election, for which all candidates were approved by the Conservative-dominated Guardian Council.
Iran’s president is not the head of state and ultimate authority rests with the supreme leader – a post Khamenei has held for the past 35 years.
The election comes against a backdrop of heighten regional tensions since the start of the Gaza war in early October, disputes with Western powers over Iran’s nuclear program and domestic
In a recent article, Pezeshkian called for “constructive relations” with European countries, even as he accused them of not living up to commitments to mitigate the impact of US sanctions.
