There will be a presidential election run-off in Iran on Friday with reformist Masoud Pezeshkian and ultraconservative Saeed Jalili. This is after the first round had a record low turnout, with most Iranians expressing their frustrations over economic sanction from the West and regional tensions in the country.
Iran’s electoral authority said that Pezeshkian, who is his party’s sole candidate, was able to garner 42% of total votes cast during the first round while former nuclear negotiator Jalili received35%. On record, there was a historically low turn up where only 40% out of country’s 61 million people registered voters took part in the process marking it as the lowest since 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called for a higher turnout in the runoff. In an official statement from Khamenei aired on Iranian state television he says “second round of presidential election is very important.” He added that “participation was not what we expected” but assured people it was not indicative of “a rebellion against the system.”
The ultraconservative President Ebrahim Raisi would have been expected to contest this election which had been originally scheduled for 2025; but his death occurred following a helicopter crash last month. The results from last month’s first round saw conservative parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf take third place with 13.8%, whereas cleric Mostafa Pourmohammadi secured less than one percent.
Pezeshkian is a heart surgeon aged sixty-nine who is representing Tabriz in Parliament; he has been endorsed by Iran’s main reformist coalition whose leaders include ex-presidents Mohammed Khatami and Hassan Rouhani. His goal is bringing Washington as well as other European nations into constructive relationships so as to alleviate Iranian isolationism.
Jalili who is 58 years old has previously been backed by Ghalibaf alongside other staunch conservative candidates as well. Hence, he can easily be described as a hardliner against Western countries characterized by his refusal to support the nuclear deal signed between Iran on one hand; and US as well as other global powers on the other in 2015 because it crossed our ‘red lines.’’
The two candidates in recent debates discussed about low voter turn out, economic challenges facing Iran and international relationships. Pezeshkian emphasized that people are fed up with their living conditions. He said: “People are tired of this government”. “People are upset with how things are going,” he continued.
Ali, a 24-year-old university student, supported Pezeshkian because he believed that he would develop “opening the country to the rest of the world.” In contrast, Maryam Naroui, 40, a supporter of Jalili, argued that he was “the best option for the country’s security.”
