Iran will have a second round of voting for president because no candidate won outright in the first round. Iran elections were scheduled on Friday, 28 July. Masoud Pezeshkian, a reformist, will face off against Saeed Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator, in the runoff election next Friday.
Mohsen Eslami, speaker on Iranian state TV, announced the election results. Out of 24.5 million votes, Masoud Pezeshkian received 10.4 million and Saeed Jalili got 9.4 million. Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf received 3.3 million votes, while Mostafa Pourmohammadi received over 206,000 votes.
According to Iranian law, a candidate must win more than 50% of all votes to win outright. Since no candidate reached this threshold, Pezeshkian and Jalili will compete in a runoff election next week. Iran has only had one previous runoff presidential election, in 2005, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defeated Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Eslami noted that the Guardian Council still needs to officially approve the result, but there were no immediate challenges from the candidates. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, women and advocates for significant reforms have been prohibited from running in Iranian elections. Additionally, international monitors do not oversee the voting process.
The election showed widespread public dissatisfaction. Over 1 million votes were invalidated, often indicating voters felt compelled to participate but didn’t support any candidate. The overall turnout was 39.9%, lower than recent elections: 42% in 2021 and 41% in March’s parliamentary election.
Critics argue that Pezeshkian is just another candidate approved by the government. In a TV documentary about him, one woman said her generation feels similar hostility toward the government as Pezeshkian’s generation did during the 1979 revolution.
Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash on May 19 along with Iran’s foreign minister and others, was viewed as a disciple of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a potential successor. He was known for his involvement in Iran’s 1988 mass executions and the harsh crackdowns on dissent, including after protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody over a hijab violation.
Meanwhile, Iran continues to enrich uranium to levels close to those used in weapons and maintains a significant stockpile that could potentially be used to make several nuclear weapons.
Despite recent tensions, there was only one reported incident related to the election. Gunmen attacked a van carrying ballot boxes in the troubled southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan, killing two police officers and injuring others. This province often experiences violence involving security forces, militants from groups like Jaish al-Adl, and drug traffickers.
