Iran's Masoud Pezeshkian wins presidential election, defeats Saeed Jalili

Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran’s reformist candidate, on July 6 won the presidential election, defeating Saeed Jalili, according to the interior ministry.

Pezeshkian emerged victorious as he secured over 17 million votes, while Jalili secured more than 13 million out of the nearly 30 million votes cast, as per information given by electoral authority spokesman Mohsen Eslami said.

Eslami said that the voter turnout stood at 49.8 per cent.

The presidential election was called early after the death of former president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash. 

After a low turnout last week, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the ultimate authority, had called for a higher turnout in the runoff.

The ballot comes against a backdrop of heightened regional tensions over the Gaza war.

In the first round held last week, Pezeshkian won the largest number of votes, around 42 per cent, while Jalili came second with around 39 per cent, according to figures from Iran's elections authority.

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Only 40 per cent of Iran's 61 million eligible voters took part in the first round which marked it as the lowest in any presidential election since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Pezeshkian, a 69-year-old heart surgeon, has called for "constructive relations" with Western countries, while 58-year-old Jalili is Iran's former nuclear negotiator widely recognised for his uncompromising anti-West stance.