Masoud Pezeshkian could benefit if participation is higher during the expected second round, next Friday.
Tehran, Iran – Iran’s snap presidential election appears to be headed for a runoff next week after reformist-backed Masoud Pezeshkian and hard-liner Saeed Jalili emerged on top but failed to secure a majority.
The latest figures from the Interior Ministry’s election headquarters on Saturday morning showed that moderate Pezeshkian was ahead with 8.3 million votes out of a total of just over 19 million votes counted, followed by former nuclear negotiator Jalili with more than 7.1 million votes.
Conservative parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, with 2.6 million votes, and conservative Islamic leader Mostafa Pourmohammadi, with 158,314 votes, are out of the race. Two other candidates, Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani and government official Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi, dropped out.
The snap election comes within the constitutional 50-day period to select a new president, after Ebrahim Raisi and seven others, including Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, died in a helicopter crash on May 19.
Like every major election over the past four years, Friday’s vote saw low turnout. The Ministry of the Interior has not yet announced official participation figures.
The lowest presidential turnout in more than four decades of the Islamic republic’s history was the one that brought Raisi to office, with 48.8 percent. At 41 percent, the parliamentary elections in March and May had the lowest turnout of any major election since the 1979 Iranian revolution.
Voter apathy comes at a time when many are disillusioned in the wake of deadly nationwide protests in 2022 and 2023, and as the economy continues to deal with a myriad of challenges, including inflation of more than 40 percent due to to mismanagement and US sanctions.
Greater turnout seems likely if Iranians vote in the July 5 runoff, which is expected as it would present a clearer choice between two opposing camps.
Pezeshkian, a prominent politician and former health minister, is supported by former centrist and reformist presidents and other important figures. He promised to lift sanctions, restore the country’s comatose 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, and bridge the widening gap between the people and the system.
Jalili, a senior member of the Supreme National Security Council, promised to reduce inflation to single digits and boost economic growth to an impressive 8 percent, along with combating corruption and mismanagement.
Pezeshkian was the only moderate of six people approved to run by the Guardian Council, the constitutional body that vets all candidates.
His supporters presented him not as a miracle worker, but as a potential president who could improve things slightly, while claiming that a Jalili victory would mark a major setback.
Jalili’s name is linked to years-long nuclear negotiations in the late 2000s and early 2010s, which ultimately led to Iran’s isolation on the global stage and the imposition of United Nations Security Council sanctions.
The hard-line politician, who has been trying to become president for more than a decade, blames the group supporting Pezeshkian for compromising the country’s nuclear program as part of the historic deal signed in 2015, which then-US President Donald Trump reneged on. in 2018.
Accusing his opponent of inefficiency, Jalili and other conservatives claimed that a Pezeshkian victory would only mark a third administration for former centrist president Hassan Rouhani.
Follow live updates on the results here.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
