- Khamenei supports vote for “popular” Masoud Pezeshkian.
- The supreme leader grants presidential powers to the winner of the second round.
- The president-elect will be sworn in before Parliament on Tuesday.
TEHRAN: Iran's reformist President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian was on Sunday granted presidential powers after the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei officially endorsed him as Iran's ninth president.
“I support the vote [for] “The wise, honest, popular and erudite Pezeshkian, and I am appointing him as president of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the director of Khamenei's office said in a statement attributed to the supreme leader.
Pezeshkian, who was due to be sworn in before parliament on Tuesday, had emerged victorious in a run-off election against Saeed Jalili earlier this month in a closely contested race in elections that were not due to be held until 2025 and were brought forward after the late President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash last month.
During the second round, called after none of the candidates managed to obtain more than 50% of the votes in the first round of the election, Pezeshkian received more than 16 million votes, while Jalili got around 13 million votes.
Pezeshkian, 69, is a heart surgeon who has represented the northern city of Tabriz in parliament since 2008 and had the backing of his former boss and Iran's last reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, as well as former President Hassan Rouhani.
During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, Pezeshkian, a combatant and doctor, was in charge of sending medical teams to the front lines. He also served as the country's health minister from 2001 to 2005, during Khatami's second term.
Since his victory, the president-elect has expressed his desire to see Tehran's relations with European countries improve.
He has called for “constructive relations” with Western countries to “bring Iran out of its isolation” and is in favour of reviving the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.
Washington unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018, reimposing sanctions and prompting Iran to gradually reduce its commitment to its terms. The accord was aimed at curbing nuclear activity that Tehran maintains is for peaceful purposes.
In an article published in the Tehran WeatherPezeshkian said that after the US withdrawal from the 2015 deal, European countries pledged to try to salvage it and mitigate the impact of US sanctions.
“I look forward to engaging in constructive dialogue with European countries to put our relations on the right track, based on the principles of mutual respect and equality,” he said.
