dpa
Tehran
Reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian and conservative hardliner Saeed Jalili will go to a run-off in Iran’s presidential election next week, after record low turnout in the first round.
Pezeshkian received 42.5% of the vote and Jalili followed at 38.7%.
As neither achieved an absolute majority, the run-off will take place on July 5, the country’s electoral authority said.
There were two other candidates in the race: current parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf garnered nearly 14% of the vote while cleric Mostafa Pourmohammadi got less than 1%.
Some 61 million voters in Iran were eligible to elect a successor to hardliner Ebrahim Raisi on Friday, after he died in a helicopter crash in May.
Out of a total of 80 candidates, the Guardian Council, a powerful Islamic supervisory body that vets the hopefuls, had only authorized six candidates for the election.
Two of six later withdrew, leaving three conservatives and the one more moderate candidate, Pezeshkian. Jalili is a loyal supporter of the leaders at the top of the Islamic Republic’s system of power.
After the results were announced, Ghalibaf pledged his support to Jalili. In a statement published by state news agency IRNA, he asked his backers to help prevent Pezeshkian coming to power.
The electoral authorities counted a total of 25.5 million votes cast on Friday. That puts turnout at around a historically low 40%. In the last presidential election in 2021, it was around 49%.
The polling stations were scheduled to close at 6 pm on Friday, but the authorities then extended voting until midnight to allow more people to take part.
Conservative reformer vs hardline insider Pezeshkian, 69, comes from north-west Iran and ran a low-key campaign calling for renewed trust between the government and Iranians, many of whom have become disillusioned with politics after failed attempts at reform, political repression and an economic crisis.
In the early 1990s, Pezeshkian lost his wife and one of his sons in a road accident. He often appeared at his campaign rallies with his daughter and grandchild.
In the TV debates, he described himself as a conservative politician who believes reforms are necessary. Like many politicians from the reformist camp, Pezeshkian has called for improved in relations with the West.
He criticized Iran’s strict headscarf requirements for women and campaigned for votes with middle-class positions.
At the same time, Pezeshkian expressed his loyalty to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the powerful Revolutionary Guards.
