Iran Opens Polls For Presidential Election

Polls in Iran opened on Friday for a presidential election following the death of president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash last month.

Polls opened at 8:00 am (0430 GMT) in 58,640 stations across the country, mostly in schools and mosques.

Polling stations will be open for 10 hours, though authorities could extend voting time as in previous elections.

Around 61 million Iranians are eligible to vote in the polls where reformist Masoud Pezeshkian, 69, hopes for a breakthrough win against a divided conservative camp.

The Guardian Council, in charge of candidates screening had endorsed him to run against a field of conservatives now dominated by parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.

Also left in contention is cleric Mostafa Pourmohammadi after two ultra-conservatives dropped out — Tehran major Alireza Zakani and Raisi’s former vice president Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi.

Interior Minister, Ahmad Vahidi said in a televised broadcast that: “We start the elections” for the country’s 14th presidential ballot.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei cast his ballot shortly after the polls opened and urged Iranians to vote.

“Election day is a day of joy and happiness for us Iranians,” he said in a televised speech where he also called for a high turnout.

“We encourage our dear people to take the issue of voting seriously and participate,” he said.

The election in sanctions-hit Iran comes at a time of high regional tensions between the Islamic Republic and its arch-foes Israel and the United States as the Gaza war rages on.

Early projections of the results are expected by Saturday morning and official results by Sunday.

The Iranian opposition, particularly in the diaspora, has called for a boycott of the vote.

Ultimate political power in Iran is held by Khamenei, the supreme leader.

Khamenei insisted this week that “the most qualified candidate” must be “the one who truly believes in the principles of the Islamic Revolution” of 1979 that overthrew the US-backed monarchy.

The next president, he said, must allow Iran “to move forward without being dependent on foreign countries”.

However, Khamenei also said that Iran should not “cut its relations with the world”.

AFP