Iranian presidential elections start today

This morning, the voting process began in Iran to elect a new president, amid an explicit preference for the hard-line conservative Ibrahim Raisi, on an election date that is expected to witness a relatively low turnout.

18 June, 2021 04:40

NEWS DESK

The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Ali Khamenei, cast his vote at 7:03 in the Imam Khomeini Husseiniya in central Tehran, launching the polling process.

Meanwhile, the head of the Iranian Electoral College said that the results of the presidential elections will be announced before noon on Saturday if there is no recount of the votes, and announced that the number of voters has reached about fifty-nine million, and that there are about sixty-seven thousand polling stations in cities and more than seventy-five thousand ballot boxes are distributed in different villages, and helicopters may be used to deliver the boxes to hard-to-reach areas and villages.

Hojjat al-Islam Raisi (60 years old), who has held the presidency of the judiciary since 2019, is competing with three other candidates, and the most likely to win a four-year term to succeed is the moderate Hassan Rouhani.

Raisi's victory - if it is achieved - will strengthen the conservative movement's hold on the joints of the ruling bodies in Iran, after its broad victory in the elections of the Islamic Consultative Assembly (parliament) last year.

D.H