Iran Election Runoff: Pezeshkian vs Jalili

The June 28 presidential election marked the lowest voter turnout in the history of the Islamic Republic, with only 40 percent participation. This breaks the previous record set during the last election, in which the late President Ebrahim Raisi won with 48 percent turnout.

Activists and officials have highlighted that the low turnout is a clear sign of the public's discontent with the ruling autocracy, demonstrated through the widespread boycott of the election.

Mostafa Pourmohammadi, who scored the lowest number of votes in the election, said on X: "Greetings to all of you who came to vote on June 29, and respect to all of you who did not believe us and did not come. Your presence and absence are full of messages that I hope will be heard. Your message is clear and unambiguous.”

Iran's ICT Minister Issa Zarepour has said that the June 28 presidential election was targeted by 20 "sabotage attempts," leading to 9 outages that were “resolved.”

"Throughout the elections, we faced numerous cyberattacks, all of which were repelled," he said on Saturday.

This comes as Iran's presidential election was held only with paper ballots, and no electronic voting machine was used, according to the Election Headquarters. However, the identity verification process was carried out electronically, according to Iranian authorities.

With voter turnout officially announced at 40 percent, a video of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei from 2001 has become viral in which he describes a 40-percent turnout as a "disgrace."

Social media users are extensively sharing the video of a Khamenei’s sermon in 2001 when he mocked Western countries for low turnout in their elections. He said in his sermon that a turnout of 40 percent was a cause of shame and indicated that the citizens of these countries, including the United States, did not trust their political system.

"It shows people do not trust, care, or hope for their political system," he said.

Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi hailed the 40-percent voter turnout without mentioning that more than 60% of eligible voters did not participate in the election. The turnout marks the lowest in the history of Iran's presidential elections.

"The Iranian people had a valuable presence in the elections,” he said, adding that "Our main gratitude goes to the people of our country; a great task was accomplished, and this is the realization of religious democracy."

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who is out from the race to replace Raisi after receiving approximately 3,383,000 votes, has announced his support for hardliner Saeed Jalili for the second round of voting.

In a statement, Ghalibaf expressed concerns about some of the individuals associated with Pezeshkian. He did not mention any names, but during debates, he repeatedly stated that Pezeshkian’s prospective administration is a continuation of former President Hassan Rouhani's government. Ghalibaf labeled Pezeshkian as a representative of the group responsible for a significant portion of Iran's current economic and political problems.

He urged his supporters to work towards making Jalili, the candidate of the "Revolutionary Front," the next president.

The presidential election, with a turnout rate of about 40 percent, has gone to a second round between Pezeshkian and Jalili.

A comparison of the total votes for the four candidates with the counted ballots shows that the number of invalid votes in the first round of Iran's 14th presidential election is 1,056,159.

At about five percent, the number of invalid votes is low compared to the previous round of presidential election, when late President Ebrahim Raisi came first. In June 2021, out of 28,989,529 votes, 13 percent were invalid, and Raisi won with about 62 percent of the total votes.

Votes from 58,640 polling stations across 482 cities have been counted, with a total of 24,535,185 ballots cast. The results are as follows:

• Masoud Pezeshkian: 10,415,991 votes
• Saeed Jalili: 9,473,298 votes
• Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf: 3,383,340 votes
• Mostafa Pourmohammadi: 206,397 votes

As none of the candidates secured a majority, the election will proceed to a second round. According to the law, the runoff election will be held nationwide on Friday, July 5.

With 19,069,713 ballots counted so far, Masoud Pezeshkian is still leading with 8,302,577 votes. He is followed by Saeed Jalili with 7,189,756 votes, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf with 2,676,512 votes, and Mostafa Pourmohammadi with 158,314 votes.

Out of a total of 58,640 polling stations, the votes from 47,604 stations have been counted so far.

Out of 14,070,462 ballots counted so far, pro-reform candidate Masoud Pezeshkian is leading with 5,955,781 votes.

He is followed by Saeed Jalili with 5,560,321 votes, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf with 1,891,385 votes, and Mostafa Pourmohammadi with 111,967 votes, according to official figures released by the Interior Ministry.

Additionally, there have been 549,008 invalid votes.

The total number of polling stations is 58,640, with 32,244 stations counted so far, and 375 counties have been tallied.

Out of 2,372,866 ballots counted so far, pro-reform candidate Pezeshkian is leading with 973,052 votes, followed by Saeed Jalili (963,615), Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf (341,056), and Mostafa Pourmohammadi (15,625), according to the first official figures from the Interior Ministry.