MILDLY reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian has won Iran’s run-off presidential election, a vote count showed on Saturday.

Mr Pezeshkian, who beat hardliner Saeed Jalili, promised to reach out to the West and ease enforcement of the country’s headscarf law after years of sanctions and protests squeezing the Islamic republic.

The president-elect’s campaign did not propose radical changes to Iran’s Shi’ite theocracy and he has acknowledged Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the final arbiter of all matters of state. 

According to the official vote count, Mr Pezeshkian received 16.3 million votes to Mr Jalili’s 13.5 million in Friday’s election. 

Overall, 30 million people voted, the Interior Ministry said, representing a turnout of 49.6 per cent — higher than the historic low of the June 28 first-round vote but lower than in other presidential contests.

Supporters of Mr Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon and veteran legislator, went onto the streets of Tehran and other cities before dawn to celebrate his victory over Mr Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator.

Mr Pezeshkian later travelled to the mausoleum of the late grand ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 Islamic revolution, where he addressed journalists.

“In this election, I didn’t give you false promises. I did not lie,” he said.

“It’s been many years after the revolution that we [have] come to the podium, we make promises and we fail to fulfill them. This is the biggest problem we have.”

Ayatollah Khamenei said: “I would like to recommend that Dr Pezeshkian, the elected president, put his trust in God, the Compassionate, and set his vision on high, bright horizons.”

Voters expressed a guarded optimism.

“I don’t expect anything from him — I am happy that the vote put the brake on hardliners,” said bank worker Fatemeh Babaei, who voted for Mr Pezeshkian. 

Taher Khalili, an Iranian of Kurdish origin who runs a small tailor’s shop in Tehran, said he hoped that the incoming president would “make the economy better for small businesses.”