Reformist, ultraconservative in Iran presidential run-off
TEHERAN: Iranians will vote tomorrow in a presidential run-off pitting the reformist Masoud Pezeshkian against ultraconservative anti-Western former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.
Around 61 million Iranians are eligible to cast ballots in the election, which was called after the death of ultraconservative president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash.
It will be held amid heightened regional tensions over the Gaza war, a dispute with the West over Iran’s nuclear programme and popular discontent over the state of Iran’s sanctions-hit economy.
The first round was marked by a voter turnout of only 40 per cent, the lowest in any presidential election since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Pezeshkian, a relative unknown before of the election, came out on top with 42 per cent in the first round on June 28, but he fell short of an outright victory.
The candidacy of Pezeshkian revived cautious hopes for Iran’s reformist wing after years of conservative and ultraconservative dominance.
But in the run-off, he is up against Jalili, who secured 38 per cent in the first round and has the backing of conservative and ultraconservative candidates.
Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who came in third in the first round with 13.8 per cent, urged his supporters to back Jalili in the run-off, as did two ultraconservatives who dropped out of the race.
Former president Mohammad Khatami, along with other reformist figures, has rallied behind Pezeshkian, urging voters to head to the polls in large numbers to “avoid making the situation worse” in Iran.
In central Teheran, cook Javad Abdolkarimi, 42, said he was unsure who would get his vote.
“I’m still undecided on who to vote for,” he said, expressing hopes that a new government would help stop soaring inflation and the decline of the Iranian rial against the US dollar.
On Monday, the two rivals faced off in a two-hour televised debate where they discussed Iran’s economic woes, international relations, the low voter turnout and internet restrictions.
“People are unhappy with us,” Pezeshkian said during the debate, blaming the weak participation rate on the failure to involve women and religious and ethnic minorities in politics.
Jalili voiced dismay over the low voter turnout.
“I didn’t vote in the first round and won’t do so in the second,” said pensioner Fatemeh, 75, “The two candidates have not come forward to solve people’s problems, they have come for their own survival.”
Opposition groups, especially in the diaspora, have called for a boycott, questioning the credibility of elections and arguing that the reformists and conservatives are two sides of the same coin.