Reformist Pezeshkian will face ultraconservative Jalili

TEHRAN, June 29 (AFP): The sole reformist in Iran's presidential election, Masoud Pezeshkian, will face the ultraconservative Saeed Jalili in a runoff, authorities said on Saturday, following a vote marred by historically low turnout.
Pezeshkian, 69, secured 42.4 percent of the vote, while Jalili, a 58-year-old former nuclear negotiator, came second with 38.6 percent, according to voting figures announced by Mohsen Eslami, spokesman for Iran's elections authority.
Conservative parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf was next with 13.8 percent of the vote, while the only other candidate, conservative cleric Mostafa Pourmohammadi, received less than one percent.
"None of the candidates could garner the absolute majority of the votes," Eslami said, adding that those who finished first and second would face each other in a runoff next Friday.
Only slightly more than 40 percent of the 61 million electorate took part in Friday's first round-a record low turnout for the Islamic republic.
The electoral authority said more than one million ballots were spoiled.
Out of Iran's 13 previous presidential elections since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, only one has led to a runoff, which occurred in 2005.
The poll had been scheduled to take place in 2025 but was brought forward by the death of ultraconservative president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash last month. The Guardian Council, which vets candidates, had originally approved six contenders.
But a day ahead of the election, two of them-the ultraconservative mayor of Tehran Alireza Zakani and Raisi's vice president Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh-Hashemi-dropped out.
Both candidates, after the release of the final results, asked their supporters to vote for Jalili in the July 5 runoff. Ghalibaf followed suit later, asking "all revolutionary forces and supporters" to get behind Jalili's bid for the presidency.
In the 2021 election that brought Raisi to power, the Guardian Council disqualified many reformists and moderates, prompting many voters to shun the election.
The turnout then was just under 49 percent, which at the time was the lowest in any presidential election in Iran.
Friday's vote took place amid heightened regional tensions over the Gaza war, a dispute with the West over Iran's nuclear programme and domestic discontent over the state of Iran's sanctions-hit economy.