In the upcoming showdown on July 5, Masoud Pezeshkian and Saeed Jalili will go head-to-head as the top two candidates in the recently held presidential election in Iran. With a total of 24,535,185 votes cast and a voter turnout of 39.92%, over 61,452,000 eligible voters had their say at the polls.
Pezeshkian emerged as the front-runner with 10,415,991 votes, securing 42.45% of the ballots. Meanwhile, Jalili closely followed with 9,473,298 ballots, representing 38.61% of the votes. The other candidates, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and Mostafa Pourmohammadi, obtained 13.78% and 0.84% of the votes, respectively.
The election, which was held at around 59,000 polling stations nationwide, was prompted by the unfortunate passing of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and several other officials in a tragic helicopter crash in May. The unexpected vacancy in the presidency led to an early election to determine the country’s new leader.