Iran’s Election Headquarters has announced the final results of the presidential runoff election, declaring Masoud Pezeshkian as the winner and next President of the Islamic Republic.
Pezeshkian secured the highest number of votes in the June 28 snap election, beating rival Saeed Jalili.
The election headquarters released eight updates, with the final one coming at 6:45 AM local time (03:15 GMT), confirming Pezeshkian’s victory.
The announcement marks the culmination of a closely watched election process, determining the country’s next leader.
Mohsen Eslami, spokesperson for Iran’s election headquarters which runs under the auspices of the country’s interior ministry, said Pezeshkian prevailed over his opponent, Jalili PressTV reports.
Of the total 30,530,157 votes counted, Pezeshkian garnered 16,384,403 votes while Jalili trailed behind with 13,538,179 ballots.
The gap between the two candidates was more than two million votes in the end.
Earlier, it appeared to be a close contest between seasoned lawmaker and former health minister, Pezeshkian, and former lead nuclear negotiator and head of the top security body, Jalili.
In the previous update, the seventh one, at 5:35 AM local time (02:05 GMT), after the counting of 23,646,138 votes, Pezeshkian further consolidated his lead, garnering 12,704,910 votes.
Jalili trailed much behind with 10,474,238 ballots.
In the sixth update, at 5:05 AM local time (01:35 GMT), after the counting of 20,611,971 votes, Pezeshkian was leading with 11,120,924 votes.
Jalili trailed behind with 9,097,993 ballots, with a widening gap between the two hopefuls.
In the fifth update, at 4:30 AM local time (1:00 GMT) after the counting of 16,546,660 votes, Pezeshkian had received 8,694,743 votes against Jalili’s 7,535,557 votes.
In the fourth update at 4:05 AM local time (00:35 GMT), after the counting of 13,550,280 votes, Pezeshkian was ahead in the race with 6,939,955 votes, and Jalili followed closely with 6,359,099.
In the third update at 3:35 AM local time (00:05 GMT), after the counting of 9,699,843 votes, Pezeshkian was well placed with 4,996,364 votes out of a total 9,699,843 ballots counted.
Jalili with 4,526,960 votes trailed with the gap between them expanding than in previous updates.
In the second one, which came at 3:05 AM local time (23:35 GMT), Pezeshkian was ahead in the tight race with 2,904,227 votes, followed closely by Jalili with 2,815,566 votes.
The first update at around 2:35 AM local time (23:05 GMT) showed Pezeshkian with 1,263,874 votes out of 3,547,381 votes counted so far.
Jalili trailed closely behind with 1,244,640 votes, pointing to a close fight.
The counting of votes commenced immediately after the polls closed following a 16-hour voting process that saw more than 50 percent voter turnout, significantly higher than the June 28 election.
More than 30 million votes were cast as a large number of people flocked to polling stations in Tehran and other cities and villages across the country in response to the call made by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
Voting was extended three times on Friday, each time by two hours, after 6:00 PM local time when the polling was supposed to close as per the constitutional requirement of a 10-hour voting period.
The voting lines finally closed at midnight, after which the vote counting began at thousands of polling stations scattered across the country, including more than 6,000 in the capital, Tehran.
The snap presidential election was called after President Ebrahim Raeisi passed away in a helicopter crash with seven other officials in northwestern Iran on May 19.
More than 61 million Iranians were eligible to vote in Friday’s election inside the country, in addition to around 10 million Iranians living abroad.
People exhibited tremendous patriotic fervor by coming out in large numbers to cast their ballots across the country on Friday with long queues spotted at polling stations in Tehran and other cities.
Saharareporters
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