Iran presidency runoff pits reformist against hardliner

TEHRAN

The sole reformist in Iran's presidential election, Masoud Pezeshkian, will face the ultraconservative Saeed Jalili in a runoff, authorities said on June 29, following a vote marred by historically low turnout.

Pezeshkian secured 42.4 percent of the vote, while Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator, came second with 38.6 percent, according to figures from Iran's elections authority.

Conservative parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf was next with 13.8 percent, while the only other candidate, conservative cleric Mostafa Pourmohammadi, got less than one percent.

"None of the candidates could garner the absolute majority of the votes," electoral authority spokesman Mohsen Eslami said.

In his first post-election remarks, Pezeshkian thanked his supporters and urged them to vote again next July 5 "to save the country from poverty, lies, discrimination and injustice."

"I hope your presence will be the basis of a new voice for change in attitude, behaviour, conversation and in the distribution and allocation of resources," he added in a video published on the website of the reformist newspaper Etemad.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had called for a high turnout ahead of Friday's vote.

Only slightly more than 40 percent of the 61 million electorate took part – a record low turnout for the Islamic republic – and more than one million ballots were spoiled.

The poll had been scheduled to take place in 2025 but was brought forward by the death of ultraconservative president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash last month.

The Guardian Council, which vets candidates, had originally approved six contenders.

But a day ahead of the election, two of them – the ultraconservative mayor of Tehran Alireza Zakani and Raisi's vice president Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh-Hashemi – dropped out.

After the final results were released, they both asked their supporters to vote for Jalili in the July 5 runoff.

Ghalibaf followed suit, asking "all revolutionary forces and supporters" to get behind Jalili's bid for the presidency.

In the 2021 election that brought Raisi to power, the Guardian Council disqualified many reformists and moderates, prompting many voters to shun the election.

The turnout then was just under 49 percent, which at the time was the lowest in any presidential election in Iran.

The vote took place amid heightened regional tensions over the Gaza war, a dispute with the West over Iran's nuclear programme and domestic discontent over the state of Iran's sanctions-hit economy.