Iran's president-elect Masoud Pezeshkian has vowed to serve all Iranians in his first public address after being declared the winner of a runoff election against hardline rival Saeed Jalili.
Speaking from the Iranian capital Tehran on Saturday, Pezeshkian said his victory would “mark the beginning of a new chapter” for the country.
“A great test awaits us, a test of hardship and challenges, simply to provide a prosperous life for our people,” he said during brief remarks at the mausoleum of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Pezeshkian also praised the relatively high turnout in Friday's election and vowed to listen to the voices of the Iranian people and “fulfill all the promises” he made.
Considered a centrist and reformist candidate, Pezeshkian won nearly 16.4 million of the more than 30 million votes cast, ahead of Jalili, who received about 13.5 million, according to the official count.
“To win [the] “With the majority of votes cast on Friday, Pezeshkian has become Iran's next president,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
Shortly after the announcement, Jalili admitted defeat and said that anyone elected by the people must be respected.
“We must not only respect him, but now we must use all our strength and help him to move forward with strength,” he told state television.
There were scenes of celebration after the results were declared, with small groups of Pezeshkian's supporters taking to the streets.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was among several world leaders who congratulated Pezeshkian, but Western leaders have yet to respond.
'A bridge'
Turnout in the runoff was 49.8 percent in the tight race between Pezeshkian, the only moderate in an original field of four candidates who has pledged to open Iran to the world, and former nuclear negotiator Jalili, a staunch advocate of deepening Iran's ties with Russia and China.
Friday's vote followed a record-low turnout on June 28, when more than 60 percent of Iranian voters abstained from early voting to choose a successor to Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May.
In last week's election, Pezeshkian received about 42.5 percent of the vote and Jalili about 38.7 percent.
Reporting from Tehran on Saturday, Al Jazeera's Resul Serdar noted that around 50 percent of Iranians did not vote because some “had no faith that the election would bring any change, whether the winner is a conservative or a reformist.”
Others boycotted the election, Serdar said. “This is a silent protest.”
Pezeshkian is expected to take up his duties within 30 days. As he is still a deputy for Tabriz, the body will first vote on his resignation.
The country's ninth elected president will have to be officially approved at a ceremony by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, after which he will be sworn in by parliament.
Pezeshkian repeatedly praised Khamenei during his speech on Saturday in what Al Jazeera's Serdar said appeared to underline that the president-elect is trying to avoid a rift with Iran's political establishment.
“He once again reiterated that he is not the president of just the reformists, but also of all Iranians who did not vote for him,” he said. “That is very important, because Iran is a very socially divided country today and that fragility is a great concern for the political establishment.
“It now promises to be a bridge between the state and the people,” Serdar added.
Challenges ahead
Political analysts said Pezeshkian's win could promote a pragmatic foreign policy, ease tensions over now-stalled negotiations with major world powers to revive a 2015 nuclear deal and improve prospects for social liberalization in Iran.
Both presidential candidates had promised to revive the ailing economy, beset by mismanagement and sanctions reimposed since 2018 after then-U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally abandoned the nuclear deal.
Tohid Asadi, a professor at Tehran University, told Al Jazeera that Pezeshkian's victory shows that many Iranians are interested in “a change in domestic and foreign policies”.
However, Asadi explained that Iranian politics is “a highly dynamic and complex mechanism” in which the president is only one actor influencing decisions.
On the nuclear deal, he said, “the ball will be in the court of the United States and the West” to rebuild trust in Iran’s political establishment.
Mostafa Khoshcheshm, a Tehran-based analyst and professor at Fars Media College, said he did not expect any strategic changes in Iran's foreign policy.
The foreign policy file, he explained, “is decided by the entire establishment, mainly in the Supreme National Security Council, where [there are] representatives of the government, as well as the armed forces, the Iranian supreme leader and parliament.”
Much will also depend on the outcome of the US presidential election in November, which will once again pit incumbent President Joe Biden against Trump.
“If Donald Trump comes to power, I really don't expect any kind of change, any negotiations between the two sides, or any change in the current course of actions,” Khoshcheshm told Al Jazeera.
Ultimately, Pezeshkian will be in charge of implementing the state policy outlined by Khamenei, who holds the highest authority in the country.
