The sole reformist in Iran’s presidential election, Masoud Pezeshkian, would face the ultraconservative Saeed Jalili in a runoff, authorities said yesterday, following a vote marred by historically low turnout.
Pezeshkian, 69, secured 42.4 percent of the vote, while Jalili, a 58-year-old former nuclear negotiator, finished second with 38.6 percent, Iranian Election Office spokesman Mohsen Eslami said.
Islamic Consultative Assembly Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf was next with 13.8 percent of the vote, while the only other candidate, conservative cleric Mostafa Pourmohammadi, received less than 1 percent.
Photo: Majid Asgaripour / West Asia News Agency via Reuters
“None of the candidates could garner the absolute majority of the votes,” Eslami said, adding that those who finished first and second would face each other in a runoff on Friday next week.
Only slightly more than 40 percent of the 61 million electorate took part in Friday’s first round — a record low turnout for the Islamic republic.
The Election Office said that more than 1 million ballots were spoiled.
Photo: AFP
Out of Iran’s 13 previous presidential elections since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, only one has led to a runoff, which was in 2005.
The poll had been scheduled to take place next year, but was brought forward by the death of Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash last month.
The Guardian Council, which vets candidates, had originally approved six contenders, but a day before the election, two of them — Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani and Iranian Vice President Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh-Hashemi — dropped out.
Both candidates, after the release of the final results, asked their supporters to vote for Jalili in the runoff.
Ghalibaf followed suit later, asking “all revolutionary forces and supporters” to get behind Jalili’s bid for the presidency.
Friday’s vote took place amid heightened regional tensions over the Gaza war, a dispute with the West over Iran’s nuclear program and domestic discontent over the state of Iran’s sanctions-hit economy.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had urged people to vote, while opposition groups, especially in the diaspora, called for a boycott, questioning the credibility of elections.
Pezeshkian is a heart surgeon who has represented the northern city of Tabriz in parliament since 2008.
He served as health minister under Iran’s previous reformist president Mohammad Khatami, who held office from 1997 to 2005 and has endorsed Pezeshkian’s bid in the current elections.
Pezeshkian criticized Raisi’s government for a lack of transparency during nationwide protests triggered by the September 2022 death in police custody of Mahsa Amini.
The 22-year-old Iranian Kurd had been arrested for allegedly contravening the country’s strict dress code for women.
In recent campaigning, Pezeshkian called for “constructive relations” with Washington and European countries to “get Iran out of its isolation.”
Jalili, Iran’s former nuclear negotiator, has maintained his uncompromising anti-West stance.
The 58-year-old has held several senior positions in the Islamic republic, including in Khamenei’s office in the early 2000s.
He is currently one of Khamenei’s representatives in the Supreme National Security Council, Iran’s highest security body.
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and accompanying warships were in the Philippines yesterday after holding combat drills with Philippine forces in the disputed South China Sea in a show of firepower that would likely antagonize China. The Charles de Gaulle on Friday docked at Subic Bay, a former US naval base northwest of Manila, for a break after more than two months of deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. The French carrier engaged with security allies for contingency readiness and to promote regional security, including with Philippine forces, navy ships and fighter jets. They held anti-submarine warfare drills and aerial combat training on Friday in
COMBAT READINESS: The military is reviewing weaponry, personnel resources, and mobilization and recovery forces to adjust defense strategies, the defense minister said The military has released a photograph of Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) appearing to sit beside a US general during the annual Han Kuang military exercises on Friday last week in a historic first. In the photo, Koo, who was presiding over the drills with high-level officers, appears to be sitting next to US Marine Corps Major General Jay Bargeron, the director of strategic planning and policy of the US Indo-Pacific Command, although only Bargeron’s name tag is visible in the seat as “J5 Maj General.” It is the first time the military has released a photo of an active
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
RSS