An official statement on Saturday has it that Iran’s presidential election has resulted in a runoff between reformist Masoud Pezeshkian and hard-liner Saeed Jalili.
This second round is however necessary after the initial vote failed to produce an outright winner, with July 5th being the scheduled date.
“Since none of the candidates could garner the absolute majority of the votes, therefore, the first and second contenders who got the most votes will be referred to The Guardian Council” for further poll planned for 5th July,” added Iranian election spokesman Mohsen Eslami as quoted by AFP.
Iran is holding elections following the death of Raisi. The latter, aged 63, died in a helicopter crash along with Iran’s foreign minister and others on May 19.
The overall voter turnout was 39.9% with more than one million voided votes. In 2021 presidential election where Raisi emerged victorious had a turnout of 42%, while March parliamentary election saw only 41% voting.
In accordance with Iranian law
According to Iranian law, a candidate must obtain greater than half of all votes cast for him/her to be declared winner.
If this percentage is not achieved, then there shall be a run-off election between top two candidates in the subsequent week. There has only ever been one presidential run-off in Iran’s history which occurred in 2005 when hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defeated former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Eslami admitted that official sanction from the Guardian Council would be required but no immediate challenge against results from any of contestants.
