Iran to hold runoff Friday to elect one of two remaining contenders

The Iranian Electoral Commission declared on Saturday that a runoff would be held on Friday after neither of the two top candidates garnered the 50 plus one majority of votes in the first round of the snap polling held on Friday. The second round of the polling will pit the reformist Masoud Pezeshkian against the fundamentalist Saeed Jalili. Both garnered the largest number of the ballots in the first round of the electoral process. Mohsen Eslami, the commission's spokesperson, said at a news conference, that final results of the presidential election would be determined in the runoff on Friday. He said Pezekshian won 10.315,991 votes, 42.6 percent of the total ballots, amounting to 24.353,185 -- short of the 50+ votes required to win the top post. Jalilee, representative of the Supreme Guide in the National Security Council, came second with 9.473,298 votes, 38.8 percent of the whole ballots. The nominee Mohammad Ghalibaf, the parliament speaker, took 3.383,340 votes, 13.8 percent, and the former interi or minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi, was last with 206,387 votes, 0.8 percent, Eslami added. Up to 40 percent of the eligible voters, estimated at more than 61 million, cast their ballots at the electoral centers, the spokesperson stated. The first round of the snap election was held on Friday to elect a successor to president Ebrahim Raisi who died in a helicopter crash in May. Source: Kuwait News Agency