ISTANBUL — Iranian voters have given reformist candidate Massoud Pezeshkian a landslide victory in a runoff election to replace the late President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May.
Iran's next president, Pezechkian, a heart surgeon and member of parliament who ran on a moderate reformist platform, was a little-known candidate, but he won in larger numbers than in the first round, beating Saeed Jalili, a hardline conservative and strongly anti-Western former nuclear negotiator, by more than 2.8 million votes.
Iranian officials said about 30 million people voted on Friday, representing about 49.6 percent of eligible voters, a low figure for a presidential election. Officials reported that Pezeshkian received 16.3 million votes, while Jalili received 13.5 million.
Pezeshkian floated only modest proposals during the election campaign and indicated he would not seek major reforms to a government that leaves all important national matters to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Pezeshkian will also be facing a government that remains largely made up of hardliners at a time of tension with the West over a number of issues, including the Gaza war.
How we arrived at today's results
Sudden general elections were called following the death of late President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash on May 19.
Iran's Guardian Council, responsible for vetting candidates, whittled down the field to just six candidates — five hard-line conservatives and one reformist — but two candidates dropped out before the first vote.
The first round of voting in the presidential election took place on June 28 among the four remaining candidates: Pezeshkian, Jalili, Parliament Speaker and former Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, and Mostafa Pourmohammadi, a Shiite cleric who served in Iran's Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Intelligence.
But neither candidate received a majority of the votes, with Pezeshkian coming in first with 10.4 million votes and Jalili coming in second with 9.4 million. They will advance to a runoff election on Friday.
The runoff election will be the second in the country's history to hold a presidential runoff election, the first in 2005 when hardline candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defeated former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
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