Moderate reformist Fizeshkyan was elected president of Iran with 54% of the vote.

Massoud Fezeshkian, the moderate reformist candidate elected as the president of Iran, waves. (Photo = AFPBB News)

(Daily reporter Zhu Yinglu) Moderate reformist politician Masoud Fezeshkian (70) won the Iranian presidential by-election that was suddenly held after former President Ibrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash in May last year.

According to the Iranian Ministry of Interior and official media on the 6th (local time), the counting of votes for the runoff election held the day before has been temporarily completed, and candidate Fezeshkian was elected with 16.38 million votes (54%).

His opponent, hard-line conservative candidate Saeed Jalili (59), was satisfied with 13.53 million votes (44%).

Since no candidate received a majority of votes in the first round of voting on the 28th of last month, two candidates advanced to the finals in order of votes, leading to a confrontation between conservatives and reformists. Candidate Fezekian unexpectedly won first place with 44.4% of the votes in the first round of voting, and eventually defeated candidate Jalili in the final election with about 2.85 million votes. President-elect Fezekian is the only reformist candidate in this presidential election.

The voter turnout in this election was about 49.8%, the lowest since the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979. It was nearly 10 percentage points higher than the first round of voting last month (39.9%), but lower than previous presidential elections.