Iran will have a second round of voting to choose a new president after the initial election didn’t produce a clear winner. This runoff is needed because no candidate got enough votes to win outright.
The election, set for next Friday, will be between Masoud Pezeshkian, a reformist candidate, and Saeed Jalili, a hard-line former nuclear negotiator. In the first round of voting, Pezeshkian received 10.4 million votes, while Jalili got 9.4 million votes.
Mohsen Eslami, the election spokesman, shared these results during a news conference broadcast by Iranian state television. He noted that out of the 24.5 million votes cast, other candidates also received significant numbers of votes.
Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf earned 3.3 million votes, and Shiite cleric Mostafa Pourmohammadi received over 206,000 votes.
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The need for a new president arose after the death of Ebrahim Raisi, who was a hard-line president and a close ally of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Raisi, aged 63, died in a helicopter crash in May, prompting the upcoming election.
The runoff election will be closely watched as it will determine the direction of Iran’s future policies, either continuing the hard-line approach or shifting towards reformist ideas. The result will have significant implications for Iran’s domestic and international affairs.
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