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More than 59 million candidates in Iran will decide the fate of four candidates to replace President Hassan Rouhani.
Polls have opened in the Iranian presidential election amid concerns over his low turnout with conservative judiciary Ebrahim Raisi, who is widely regarded as a pioneer.
Nearly 60 million voters in Iran will decide the fate of the four candidates to replace President Hassan Rouhani. Under the command of Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei, the Guard Council, a 12-member constitutional body, banned hundreds of candidates, including reformists and those who joined Rouhani.
Polls open at 7:00 a.m. and close at 1930 GMT but can be extended by two hours. Results are expected around noon on Saturday.
With uncertainty over Iran’s efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal and growing domestic poverty following U.S. sanctions, turnout in Iran is seen as a referendum by leaders to handle many crises.
“Every vote counts … come, vote and elect your president … that’s important for the future of your country,” Khamenei said after his vote in the capital Tehran.
State television showed long queues outside polling stations in several cities.
State-run opinion polls and analysts have put Raisi, the 60-year-old head of the judiciary, at the forefront. If elected, Raisi would be the first Iranian president to be punished by the U.S. government for his involvement in the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988, as well as the time he led Iran’s internationally criticized judiciary. the world’s leading executioners.
Raisi, who wears a black turban that identifies with the Shiite tradition, is a direct descendant of the Prophet of Islam Muhammad, who later voted from a mosque in southern Tehran to give a vote to those gathered.
Raisi’s victory would confirm the political demise of pragmatist politicians like Rouhani, who were weakened by a weakened decision in the move to abandon the nuclear deal and re-impose sanctions on the West.
Iranian officials say Iran’s offer to revive the deal and free it from harsh oil and financial sanctions would not be interrupted, with the country’s elite ruler aware that their political fortune is based on tackling worse economic difficulties.
Former Central Bank chief Abdolnasser Hemmati is running as a moderate candidate for the race, but he has not inspired the same support that President Hassan Rouhani is getting, as he has a limited time to look for the office again.
The other two candidates are the hard-working 66-year-old Mohsen Rezaei and Amir Hossein Ghazizadeh, a longtime Mashhad MP.
Tensions remain high with the US and Israel, which have allegedly carried out several attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites and killed the scientist who created his military atomic program a few decades earlier.
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