IRAN. Tehran: Syed Ibrahim Raisi, cleric, and one of the faces close to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei surpassed three candidates by 90 percent of the votes to win the presidential election on Saturday.
“Mr. Seyed Ebrahim Rayeesi, has gained more than 17 million and eight hundred thousand votes, Mr. Mohsen Rezayee garnered more than 3 million and three hundred thousand votes, Mr. Abdol Nasser Hemmati earned more than two million and four hundred thousand votes and Mr. Amir Hossein Qazizadeh Hashemi gained more than a million votes until this moment,” Iranian Deputy Interior Minister Jamal Orf said on Saturday.
According to Jamal Orf, Raisi has surpassed three of his rivals by 17, 800,000 million votes that make up 63 percent of the casted votes.
Other candidates like Mohsen Rezayee, another candidate gained 3,300,000 votes, Abdul Naser Hemmati gained 2,400,000 votes, and Amir Hussain Qazizada Hashemi came with 1 million votes.
The casting of the votes began on Friday at 7:00 am local time and ended around 2:00 pm the same day.
Iranian Fara News Agency reported that Raisi’s rivals conceded and acknowledged their defeat. Abdul Naser Hemmati and Mohsen Rezayee have so far congratulated him. Current President Hassan Rouhani also visited Ayatollah Ibrahim Raisi on Saturday to congratulate him on his election victory.
The number of people eligible for voting was announced to be 59,310,307 people. The election headquarter said 28, 600,000 people participated in the election to cast their votes.
The election results show the public turnout to be 48%, which has been significantly the lowest since 1979.
Political opponents and dissidents out of Iran vowed to boycott the election and used Hashtags on Twitter #No_To_Islamic_Republic.
Turnout this time appears to have been just under 50% – lower than the 73% turnout in the 2017 presidential poll.
Iranian activists out of Iran banned the election. Masih Alinejad, activist, and journalist reacted to the election.
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Iran’s Guardian Counci who choose the presidential candidates to run in the race is led by Khamenei that didn’t allow other rivals to attend the election race. This spiked the social media users before the election.
Besides being of the faces close to Khamenei, Raisi is said to be of the hardliners in the Iranian government who had hands in the mass executions of political prisoners in the 1980s and advocates the Iranian nuclear program.
The 60-year-old also served as a prosecutor as head of the judiciary in 2019. He is under US sanctions for his links to past executions of political prisoners.
Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, reacted to the election results in a message: “The great victory of the election yesterday is the Iranian nation, once again revealed against the advertising of the mercenary media of the enemy and the temptation of their crude and maliciousness, rose and showed his presence in the heart of the country’s political field. “
