Towards a second round of elections in Iran. Reformist candidates Massoud Pezeshkian and ultraconservative Saïd Jalili have qualified for the second round of the presidential election in Iran, the Interior Ministry announced on Saturday, June 29.
“None of the candidates were able to obtain an absolute majority of votes” in the first round of the presidential election and, “therefore, the first and second candidates” will be decided by a second round on July 5, Mohsen Eslami, spokesman for the ministry’s elections department, told reporters, according to AFP.
Out of 14 presidential elections held since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, only one has so far been decided in the second round, in 2005.
Around 9:45 a.m. (6:15 a.m. GMT), out of 19.07 million ballots counted, MP Massoud Pezeshkian received 8.30 million votes and Saïd Jalili, former nuclear negotiator, 7.19 million. They were clearly ahead of the conservative President of Parliament, Mohamad Baquer Ghalibaf, credited with 2.68 million votes. Far behind, the fourth candidate, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the only cleric in the running, received 158,314 votes.
Voters urged to “take voting seriously”
Authorities have not yet released any figures on turnout, although some 61 million voters were called to vote on Friday. The election was hastily organized after conservative President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash on May 19.
It is closely followed abroad while Iran, a heavyweight in the Middle East, is at the heart of several geopolitical crises, from the war in Gaza to the nuclear issue, in which it opposes Western countries.
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The Islamic Republic’s highest authority, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had called on voters on Friday to “take voting seriously and participate in it”. Opponents, particularly those from the diaspora, had called for a boycott of the vote.
A high turnout was desired by the authorities while the 2021 presidential election, for which no reformist or moderate candidate had been authorized to compete, had been marked by a record abstention of 51%.
Two personalities with different profiles
This second round between Massoud Pezeshkian and Saïd Jalili will pit two personalities with very different profiles and programs against each other.
Aged 69 and a surgeon by profession, Massoud Pezeshkian is a member of parliament for Tabriz, the large city in northwestern Iran, and has limited government experience, limited to serving as Minister of Health from 2001 to 2005. in the reform government of Mohammad Khatami.
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He became known for his outspokenness, not hesitating to criticize the government during the protest movement sparked by the death in detention of Mahsa Amini in September 2022. He also advocates a warming of relations between Iran and Western countries, led by the United States, in order to lift the sanctions that are severely affecting the economy.
Restricted powers
Conversely, Saïd Jalili, 58, is a supporter of an inflexible policy towards the West. He demonstrated this during the six years in which he led negotiations on Iranian nuclear power, between 2007 and 2013. Throughout his career, he accessed key positions within the Islamic Republic having the confidence of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. He is currently one of its two representatives on the Supreme National Security Council, the highest security body in the country.
The Iranian press took a position on Saturday morning according to its political affiliation. “Long live hope”headlined the reformist newspaper Sazandegi by publishing a photo of Massoud Pezeshkian, while the government daily Iran called for “vote for the authority of Iran”.
Whatever the outcome, the election is expected to have limited repercussions because the president has limited powers: he is responsible for implementing, at the head of the government, the broad political guidelines set by the supreme leader, who is the head of state.
