Reformist candidate Masud Pezeshkian and ultra-conservative Said Jalili will contest the second round of the presidential elections in Iran, the Interior Ministry announced on Saturday (29.06.2024), a day after the first round of the vote, marked by the lowest turnout since the Islamic revolution of 1979.
“None of the candidates obtained an absolute majority” in the first round, so there will be a runoff on July 5, Mohsen Eslami, spokesperson for the organization’s electoral office, told the press.
Of the 24.54 million ballots counted, Deputy Pezeshkian obtained 10.41 million votes (42% of the votes), and Jalili, who participated in international negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program, 9.47 million (38%). ).
Of the 14 presidential elections held since the Islamic revolution in 1979, only one has so far been decided in a second round, in 2005.
Both candidates were clearly ahead of the conservative president of Parliament, Mohamad Bagher Ghalibaf, with 3.38 million votes, and the fourth candidate, Mostafa Purmohammadi, the only religious person in the running, with 206,397 votes.
Some 61 million voters were called to the polls on Friday, but only 24.54 million, that is, 40%, voted. Some opponents, and particularly from the Iranian diaspora, had called for a boycott of the elections.
These elections attract international attention because Iran, a heavyweight in the Middle East, is at the center of several crises, from the conflict in Gaza to the issue of its nuclear program.
rr (afp/reuters/dpa)
