C T Online Desk: Iran’s reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian on Saturday won a runoff presidential election against ultraconservative Saeed Jalili, the interior ministry said.
Pezeshkian got more than 16 million votes and Jalili more than 13 million out of about 30 million votes cast, electoral authority spokesman Mohsen Eslami said, adding that voter turnout stood at 49.8 percent.
The election, called early after the death of ultraconservative president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash, followed a first round marked by a historically low turnout last week.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who wields ultimate authority, had called for a higher turnout in the runoff, emphasising the importance of the election.
He said the first round turnout was lower than expected, but added that it was not an act “against the system”.
The ballot comes against a backdrop of heightened regional tensions over the Gaza war, a dispute with the West over Iran’s nuclear programme, and domestic discontent over the state of Iran’s sanctions-hit economy.
“We will extend the hand of friendship to everyone; we are all people of this country; we should use everyone for the progress of the country,” Pezeshkian said on state television.
– Reformist support –
In last week’s first round, Pezeshkian, who was the only reformist allowed to stand, won the largest number of votes, around 42 percent, while Jalili came second with around 39 percent, according to figures from Iran’s elections authority.
Only 40 percent of Iran’s 61 million eligible voters took part in the first round — the lowest turnout in any presidential election since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
The candidacy of Pezeshkian, a relative unknown until recently, has raised the hopes of Iran’s reformists after years of dominance by the conservative and ultraconservative camps
Iran’s main reformist coalition supported Pezeshkian, with endorsements by former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani, a moderate.
