With none of the candidates being able to get 50%+1 of the votes, Iran will hold runoff election this coming Friday between the two main rivals, namely Saeed Jalili and Masoud Pezeshkian.
After counting all the votes for the 14th presidential election, the spokesperson for Iran’s election headquarters announced this Saturday noon the results of the election. According to Iran’s state media, IRNA, Mohsen Eslami said that after collecting all the votes from all the 58,640 polling stations across 482 cities in the country, 24 million 535 thousand and 185 ballots were counted.
Leading the race, Masoud Pezeshkian could get 10 million 415 thousand 991 of all the votes (42.6%,). However, this was not enough to make him the winner as he could not receive the absolute majority of all the votes, which means 50%+1 of the votes. Following Pezeshkian in a tight race, Saeed Jalili came second with 9 million 473 thousand and 298 votes (38.8%) going for him.
Two other candidates, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and Mostafa Pourmohammadi, received 3 million 383 thousand and 340 votes (13.8%,), and 206 thousand and 397 votes (0.8%.) respectively. Eslami also noted that the participation rate in the election was 40%.
Runoff election between jalili and Pezeshkian
The two now have to compete once more in a runoff election this coming Friday and Iranians who will turn out again can determine who should be the country’s president for the next four years ahead.
Speaking of the rest of the election process, Eslami said: “The Ministry of Interior has sent the results of the counted votes to the Guardian Council, and now, the Council is responsible for verifying the accuracy of the elections.”
Noting that none of the candidates could get an absolute majority of votes, Eslami added that: “Now, the first and second candidate will be introduced to the Guardian Council as the holders of the highest votes of this round, and the second round of election will be held on Friday this week to determine the president.”
“The advertising time for the two remaining candidates will start after the announcement of the Ministry of Interior and will continue until 24 hours before the voting day,” Eslami also said.
