Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei officially endorsed president-elect Masoud Pezshkian this Sunday as Iran’s ninth president.
This Sunday morning, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei officially endorsed president-elect Masoud Pezshkian as the ninth president of the Islamic Republic, Iran’s state media ISNA, reported. He could beat his conservative rival Saeed Jalili in a second-round election last month by securing more than 16 million votes, or about 54 percent of the roughly 30 million ballots cast.
“I endorse the vote (for) the wise, honest, popular, and scholarly Mr.Pezeshkian, and I am appointing him as the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the director of Khamenei’s office said in a message in the Leader’s website.
Many senior Iranian officials and foreign diplomats were present in the endorsement ceremony which was held in the capital Tehran this Sunday morning. Among them were Jalili, former moderate president Hassan Rouhani, and former head of Iran’s parliament Ali Larijani. The 69-year-old reformist president is due to be sworn in before Iran’s parliament on this coming Tuesday.
After receiving the endorsement letter from the hands of Khamenei, Pezeshkian thanked the leader and the Iranian people for electing him as head of the state, promising to carry the “heavy burden” of the presidency with all his might.
Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon who has represented the northwestern city of Tabriz in parliament since 2008, has served as health minister under Iran’s last reformist president Mohammad Khatami, who held office from 1997 to 2005.
