With a voter turnout of almost 40%, the Iranian people participated in the first round of the presidential elections on June 28. Following the death of former President Ebrahim Raisi in a plane crash on May 19, it decided to hold presidential elections in no more than 50 days, according to the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The time for preparing and promoting candidates was therefore limited, but it was necessary that this process should not be prolonged, so that the country could return to normal as soon as possible.
Masoud Pezeshkian, a reformist, came in first place with 10,415,991 votes and Saed Jalili, a conservative, in second place with 9,473,298 votes. On the 3rd and 4th were Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf with 3,383,340 votes and Mostafa Pourmohammadi, with 206,397 votes, both conservatives.
There is a strong desire for change in Iran but also a great lack of trust in the internal political process. If after the tragedy of May 19, when the country lost its president, foreign minister and a number of other officials, and after a brief active conflict between Iran and Israel, the Iranian people did not consider the election of the next president to be an important, almost historic moment, it means that the discontent is much greater than one would think.
A whole series of officials urged citizens to go out to vote, led by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, but out of more than 61 million people with the right to vote, only 24.5 million participated. If the international situation was uneventful and without stakes, then this presence at the will will probably be satisfactory.
It is expected that the 2nd round, which will take place on July 5, will bring victory to Jalili. It will most likely attract some of Qalibaf’s electorate, but it is not certain how much. Instead, Pezeshkian needs to motivate at least a small part of the tens of millions of people who, for one reason or another, chose not to express their preference in the first round. Pezeshkian far exceeded even the most optimistic opinion polls conducted during the campaign period.