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Pezeshkian wins Iran's presidential election
Iran's President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian waves to his supporters in a meeting a day after the presidential election, at the shrine of the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, just outside Tehran, Iran, July 6, 2024

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. 

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