Iranians go to polls in snap presidential election
Iranians have headed to the polls in a snap election following the unexpected passing of former President Ebrahim Raiesi in a helicopter crash.
Polls opened at 8 a.m. local time (0430 GMT) on Friday. They close at 6:00 p.m. (1430 GMT), subject to extension by the interior ministry if necessary.
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Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei cast his ballot at a polling station in Tehran just as the voting began.
"We recommend our dear people to take voting and participation in this important political test seriously and participate" in it, he said after voting.
"In order to prove the health and sincerity of the Islamic Republic's system, the presence of the people is necessary and obligatory," he said.
More than 61 million people are eligible to vote, the head of the election headquarters said.
Voting was underway at 58,640 polling stations across the country, mostly in schools and mosques. Early projections of the results are expected by Saturday morning and official results by Sunday.
If there is no clear majority after Friday’s vote, the top two candidates face a second round of voting on July 5. The winner will serve for four years.
While there was no clear frontrunner leading up to the vote, two candidates withdrew, leaving four others in the race.
Amirhossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi dropped his candidacy and urged other candidates to do the same “so that the front of the revolution will be strengthened”. On Thursday, Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani also withdrew, as he did previously in the 2021 election in which Raeisi was voted into office.
Former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf remain in the race, so do Massoud Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon by profession and a member of parliament from the northwestern city of Tabriz, and Mostafa Pourmohammadi, a former interior minister.
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