Tehran, Iran and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
CNN
—
A reformist candidate won the most votes in the first round of Iran's presidential election and will face off against a hard-line conservative candidate in a runoff next week.
None of the four candidates received more than 50 percent of the vote in Friday's election, setting up a second round of voting for July 5. The election saw the lowest turnout for a presidential election since the Islamic Republic was established in 1979.
The top vote-winner, reformist lawmaker Massoud Pezeshkian, and ultra-conservative former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, will face off in a runoff election, according to election commission spokesman Mohsen Eslami.
Pezeshkian came out on top with 42.5 percent of the vote, followed by Jalili with 38.6 percent, according to the state-run Iran News Agency. Eslami said 24 million of the 60 million eligible voters had cast ballots, giving a turnout of 40 percent.
The results will be reviewed by the Supervisory Council, a powerful 12-member body tasked with overseeing elections and legislation, before both candidates can begin campaigning again.
The elections were held after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash on the country's northwestern border on May 19, along with Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdullahian and other senior government officials.
The two conservatives dropped out of the race just a day before the election, helping a hard-line candidate consolidate the conservative vote.
Pezeshkian is the only reformist candidate after dozens of other candidates were barred from running by the Guardian Council.
Iran's electoral process has been marred in recent days by voter apathy, bringing embarrassment to a regime that has relied on high voter turnout to bolster democratic credibility and public legitimacy.
Hossein Berris/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images
Iranian presidential election candidate and member of parliament Massoud Pezeshkian waves to the crowd after casting his vote at a polling station in Tehran, Iran, on Friday.
Low voter turnout in recent parliamentary and presidential elections has reflected nationwide discontent. Iran boasts exceptionally high voter turnout, but the last parliamentary elections in March recorded the lowest turnout since 1979, despite government efforts to rally voters ahead of the polls.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Iranians to head to the polls and cast their vote after personally casting his vote in Friday morning's election.
“Public participation is part of the very essence of a state and the continued existence of the Islamic Republic and its place in the world depends on public participation,” he said.
Shina Tousi, an Iran analyst and senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C., said Pezeshkian may have been allowed to run in the election in an effort to boost voter turnout.
“The move can be seen as a strategy to create a more dynamic and engaging electoral process and encourage greater public participation,” he told CNN.
The two candidates set to compete in the upcoming election represent opposite ends of Iran's political spectrum and both have run unsuccessfully for president in the past.
Pezeshkian, who serves as health minister under reformist President Mohammed Khatami, is a trained cardiac surgeon and a member of parliament.
He rose to prominence for his stance against the crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 2009 and morality police violence in 2022 following the death of a young woman in police custody for refusing to comply with the Islamic Republic's strict female dress code.
“This is our responsibility. We are trying to enforce our religious beliefs using force. This is scientifically impossible,” Pezeshkian said in an interview with Iran's IRINN TV during the 2022 protests.
Hossein Berris/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images
An Iranian woman casts her vote at a polling station during Iran's presidential election in the Iranian capital, Tehran, on Friday.
Pezeshkian devoted much of his time to politics after losing his wife and one of his children in a car accident in 1994. He ran unsuccessfully for president in 2013 and 2021.
The 69-year-old comes from a mixed family – his father is Azerbaijani and his mother is Kurdish – and Farsi is not his first language, which has boosted his popularity among Iran's ethnic minorities but also exposed him to xenophobic attacks from some of his opponents.
A more moderate figure in power would make it easier for Western countries to engage with Iran, particularly on the nuclear issue, regional issues and trade, Vali Nasr, a Middle East scholar and former adviser to the US State Department, told CNN.
But ahead of Friday's vote, Khamenei rebuked those calling for better ties with the West, and Pezechkian has vowed to defer to Khamenei on foreign policy.
Jalili is an ultra-conservative hawk known for his uncompromising stance towards the West, a longtime security adviser to Ayatollah Khamenei and a former soldier in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) during the decade-long Iran-Iraq war.
As the chief negotiator of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, he spearheaded efforts to win sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on Iran's nuclear program. He emerged as a staunch opponent, often lecturing U.S. officials about Iran's rights during the Geneva negotiations.
Iranian media have described the supreme leader as a “firm and meticulous negotiator” who made no concessions in the nuclear talks, words he repeated ahead of Friday's vote.
Jalili ran unsuccessfully for president in 2013. He ran again in 2021 but withdrew in support of Raisi, who ultimately won.
Nasr, the Middle East scholar, said Friday's vote may be causing Iran's clerical establishment to rethink the results of the last presidential election, saying that under Raisi “the whole establishment has become uniformly more hardline and conservative.”
Arash Azizi, an Iranian writer and researcher at the Center for the Middle East and World Order (CMEG), said a “victory for the fundamentalist Mr. Jalili” would complicate efforts to resume negotiations with Western countries.
The election comes at a delicate time for the Islamic Republic, which is facing rising tensions with Israel and its Western allies in the wake of the war in Gaza and developments over Iran's nuclear program.
The vote also came just two months after Iran and Israel exchanged gunfire for the first time as the Gaza conflict escalated, with Israel now preparing for a potential second front with Hezbollah, Iran's main regional proxy in Lebanon.
Azizi said the shadow war between Iran and Israel “will continue no matter who wins,” and that the most important decisions in that regard will be taken by Ayatollah Khamenei and the security agencies, not the president.
While the Supreme Leader has final say on most decisions within Iran, the elected president is the face of the Islamic Republic of Iran abroad.
Iran's conflict with the United States has left the economy battered by years of U.S. sanctions, a devalued local currency and high inflation, leading to its collapse.
