Polls for the early presidential elections in Iran, called to replace President Ebrahim Raisi who died in a plane crash on May 19, have been open since this morning at 8:00 local time (6:30 in Italy), Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi announced. The elections will see four candidates running: three conservatives and one reformist. According to the Interior Ministry, 61,452,321 Iranians, both in the country and abroad, have the right to vote. There are 58,640 polling stations in the country, including 15,215 mobile stations. Another 340 polling stations are spread across 100 countries around the world.
Official results expected on Sunday
If none of the four candidates gets more than half the vote, a second round will be held on July 5, the only presidential election since the Islamic Republic came into power 45 years ago, in 2005. Official results are expected on Sunday at the latest, but estimates are expected to be published tomorrow.
The reformist candidate
The surprise may come from the only reformist candidate, Massoud Pezeshkian, a 69-year-old lawmaker who was virtually unknown when he was allowed to run by the Guardian Council, the authority responsible for overseeing the elections. This doctor of Azeri origin, a minority group in northwest Iran, has given new hope to the reformist and moderate camp, which in recent years has been completely marginalized by conservatives and ultra-conservatives.
The boycott of the elections
Supporters of the current government are divided between candidates Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the conservative speaker of parliament, and Said Jalili, an ultraconservative former nuclear negotiator hostile to closer ties with the West. Only 49% voted in the 2021 presidential election, in which no reformist or moderate candidate was allowed to compete. Opponents, particularly those in the diaspora, have called for a boycott of the election
