Iran Schedules July 5 Rerun After Initial Poll Fails to Elect President

After Iran’s presidential election conducted on Friday failed to produce a definite winner by conclusion of counting on Saturday, a rerun has been scheduled for coming Friday, July 5.

The top two candidates – Masoud Pezeshkian and Saeed Jalili – stood out among the four who participated in the poll but neither got the minimum 51 per cent of total vote to emerge the winner.
Pezeshkian received over 10.41 million votes, meaning 42.5 per cent of the total votes cast, trailed by Saeed Jalili with 9.47 million votes or 38.6 per cent of the total votes.

Speaker of the Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf who got 3.38 million votes, and Islamic leader Mostafa Pourmohammadi who had 206,397 votes have by their low performances dropped off, leaving the rerun for Pezeshkian and Jalili.

The Friday first round of election took place to pick a successor to President Ebrahim Raisi who died last month in a helicopter crash.

The scheduled second round of voting between Pezeshkian and Jalili will produce either of them with the higher number of votes, what is otherwise called simple majority vote.

An election spokesman, Mohsen Eslami, who told newsmen that a total of 24.5 million votes were cast in the Friday June 28 election, said around 61 million people were actually registered to vote.

Eslami explained that the 24,500,000 who voted translated to about 40 per cent voter turnout, said to be the lowest yet in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran.