Tehran: Iranians are voting today to elect a new president of the country after Ebrahim Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash earlier this year.
The voting started at 8 am (04:30GMT) and will close at 6 pm (14:30GMT). Voting can be extended for multiple two-hour periods until midnight.
The election is not expected to have a high turnout. At just over 48 percent, the 2021 vote had the lowest turnout in any presidential election since establishing the Islamic Republic in 1979.
A wide disqualification of moderate and reformist candidates, myriad economic challenges that show no signs of easing, and deadly nationwide protests have disillusioned many voters in the country of 85 million.
Iranians would have normally voted in a presidential election in June next year, which would have marked four years since Ebrahim Raisi was elected.
However, Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash on May 19 started a 50-day constitutional deadline to hold a new vote.
The presidential vote comes months after the parliamentary election in March, and a run-off in May, which were once again dominated by conservatives and hardliners amid the lowest turnouts since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The vote count will start as soon as polls close. The results are likely to be announced on Saturday.
Presidential candidates:
Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf: The 62-year-old Qalibaf is Iran’s parliament speaker and former Tehran mayor. He has extensive military ties and was seen early on as the front-runner.
Saeed Jalili: A hard-line conservative and former nuclear negotiator with strong anti-Western views, the 58-year-old Jalili is a veteran of the 1980s Iran-Iraq War, in which he lost a leg. Before that, he was a member of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.
Masoud Pezeshkian: The lone reformist candidate is also the oldest at 69. He has called for greater outreach to the outside world to improve Iran’s economy.
Mostafa Pourmohammadi: The 64-year-old is the only Shia Muslim cleric running in this election. He has served in Iran’s Interior and Intelligence Ministries, among other positions.
