Pezeshkian wins Iranian presidential election

Iran – The Iranian Interior Ministry announced this morning, Saturday, that reformist Masoud Pezeshkian won the presidential elections, beating conservative candidate Saeed Jalili.

The Interior Ministry said Pezeshkian won regarding 55% of the vote, while turnout in the second round of Iran’s presidential election was 49.8%.

Election officials have so far counted more than 30 million votes, with Pezeshkian receiving more than 17 million and Jalili more than 13 million, according to results released by the Interior Ministry.

The Iranian Interior Ministry announced on Friday evening the closure of polling stations in the second round of the presidential elections, with the legal deadline ending at midnight local time and the start of counting votes.

Some 61 million voters were called to participate in the second round of the presidential elections to decide the competition between Jalili and Pezeshkian. The reformist candidate had won over his conservative rival in the first round held on June 28 to choose the successor to the late President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash last May.

The first round witnessed an unprecedented low turnout, as more than 60% of voters abstained from voting in the early elections to choose the country’s president.

The Islamic Republic’s supreme leader acknowledged on Wednesday that “the turnout was lower than expected,” but said it was “completely wrong to think that those who did not vote in the first round are once morest the regime.”

The president is considered the second man in the power structure in Iran following the Supreme Leader Khamenei, who has the final say on all strategic matters, and is also the commander-in-chief of the Iranian armed forces.