Iran presidential election heads to runoff with reformist and hardliner leading

Shafaq News/ Iran’s snap presidential election is heading into a runoff next week after reformist-backed Masoud Pezeshkian and hardliner Saeed Jalili emerged as the top candidates but failed to secure a majority in a vote marked by record low turnout.

Only 40% of more than 61 million eligible Iranians voted, the Ministry of Interior said Saturday, setting a new low for presidential elections since the 1979 revolution.

The final tally from the ministry showed that moderate candidate Pezeshkian received over 10.4 million votes from a total of more than 24.5 million ballots counted. Former nuclear negotiator Jalili trailed with 9.4 million votes.

Conservative parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who garnered 3.3 million votes, and conservative Islamic leader Mostafa Pourmohammadi, with 206,397 votes, are out of the race. Two other candidates, Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani and government official Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi, withdrew.

The election on Friday was called within the 50 days mandated by the constitution to select a new president following the death of Ebrahim Raisi and seven others, including Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, in a helicopter crash on May 19.

Like all major elections in the past four years, Friday’s vote saw low turnout, but the final figure was much lower than the 45 to 53 percent suggested by polls.

A higher turnout is expected in the July 5 runoff, presenting a clearer choice between two opposing camps.

Pezeshkian, a prominent politician and former health minister, is backed by former centrist and reformist presidents and other top figures. He has promised to lift sanctions by restoring the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and to bridge the widening gap between the people and the establishment.

Jalili, a senior member of the Supreme National Security Council, has pledged to reduce inflation to single digits, boost economic growth to 8 percent, and combat corruption and mismanagement.

Pezeshkian was the only moderate among the six candidates approved to run by the Guardian Council, the constitutional body that vets all candidates. His supporters present him not as a miracle worker but as someone who could make incremental improvements while claiming that a Jalili victory would signal a significant backslide.

Jalili is known for his role in nuclear negotiations in the late 2000s and early 2010s, which led to Iran’s global isolation and the imposition of United Nations Security Council sanctions. He has long sought the presidency, blaming Pezeshkian’s camp for compromising Iran’s nuclear program as part of the 2015 accord, which then-U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018.

Accusing his opponent of inefficiency, Jalili and other conservatives argue that a Pezeshkian victory would mark a continuation of the policies of former centrist President Hassan Rouhani.