Iran will hold a runoff presidential election after an initial vote saw the top candidates not securing an outright win, the spokesperson for the election headquarters says.
Mohsen Eslami announced the final result on Saturday in a news conference carried by national television.
He said of 24.5 million votes cast, former health minister and senior lawmaker Masoud Pezeshkian got 10.4 million while former lead nuclear negotiator and chief of the top security body Saeed Jalili received 9.4 million.
The other two hopefuls – parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and former interior affairs minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi – trailed behind at 3.3 million and over 206,000 respectively.
Pezeshkian and Jalili will head into a runoff set for July 5. The second round is required if no candidate wins 50 percent of the vote, plus one.
Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said the government is ready to hold the runoff election as he hailed the Iranian people and election authorities for holding the polls without any incident.
“Once again, in the past few months, we were able to achieve another success together. The elections were held with complete safety and soundness, serious competition and valuable turnout of people at the polling stations,” he told reporters after the final vote count.
“I hope … we will see vigorous elections throughout the country on Friday,” he added.
The two candidates are allowed to begin their election campaign from Sunday until Wednesday, Vahidi said. Campaigning has to stop 24 hours before the vote.
In the final tally, Pezeshkian held his lead with 10,415,991 votes (42.45%) out of 24,535,185 votes. Jalili edged closer with 9,473,298 votes (38.61%).
Qalibaf and Pourmohammadi both came a distant third and fourth with 3,383,340 (13.78%) and 206,397 votes (0.84%) respectively.
