Moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani has won Iran’s presidential election, Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar announced on state television Saturday.
Rouhani, 64, won just over 50 percent of the vote needed to avoid a run-off in the surprisingly competitive race.
Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf came in a distant second.
It was the country’s first presidential election since 2009, which saw current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad controversially returned to power.
Iranian officials reported high voter turnout this time around, with an impressive 73 percent of the country’s 50 million eligible voters casting ballots.
The campaign pitted three major conservatives against a candidate supported by reformers and moderates, with six total contenders handpicked by the country’s premier religious and political authority.
A moderate, Rouhani made a last minute jump in the polls as reformists threw their weight behind him, and because some conservatives say he appealed to them, too.
He wants to steer the country back toward moderation, promising to free political prisoners, to guarantee civil rights and promising to return “dignity to the nation.”
The state of Iran’s economy was at the forefront of the election, as sanctions have put serious pressure on the country and both unemployment and inflation are rife.
Many voters remembered the bloody government response to the 2009 “Green Movement” following Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election, which saw many protesters and dissenters jailed.
This article originally was published at Global Post.