Moderate wins Iran’s presidential race, promises to warm relations with West 

Masoud Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon turned politician, won Iran’s presidential runoff election Saturday after running as a moderate who would warm chilly relations with the West and modestly reform the Islamic Republic’s hardline policies.

Pezeshkian was declared the winner over hard-liner Saeed Jalili by about 3 million votes.

Pezeshkian, 69, promised no sweeping changes to Iran’s Shiite theocracy led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But he offered voters weary of years of protests and strikes against hardliners some reprieve in crackdowns, including easing enforcement of the country's mandatory headscarf law.

He also promised to try to engage the west more effectively and tonight Iranians, who often felt ignored by the hardliners who have dominated the country the last several years. 

“I am your voice, even the voice of the 60 percent whose voice is never heard and did not show up at the polls,” he said in a campaign video recently.

The election was held after the late President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash