Iran’s president-elect Masoud Pezeshkian has thanked the Iranian nation for their support in the 14th presidential election.

According to The Iran Project, Pezeshkian expressed his gratitude in a post on his Instagram account on Saturday morning.

In his first remarks since being declared winner of a runoff vote, the president-elect also wrote on his X account that he will “extend the hand of friendship to everyone.”

Pezeshkian won the runoff presidential elections held on Friday to become Iran’s 9th president.

Out of a total of 30,530,157 votes counted, Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon, won 16,384,403 votes while Jalili stood behind his rival with 13,538,179 ballots. The turnout was reported to be 49.8%.

Pezeshkian, 69, had served as the vice speaker of the 10th Parliament and the country’s minister of health during the administration of then-President Mohammad Khatami.

The early election was held on June 28 across Iran with the participation of four candidates.

Masoud Pezeshkian and Saeed Jalili won more votes than other hopefuls; meanwhile, the runoff election was planned for a week later as none of the candidates managed to get the majority of votes to become the president of Iran.