Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that the turnout in the first round of the country's presidential election was "lower than expected", semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during the 35th anniversary of the death of the leader of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, at Khomeini's shrine in southern Tehran, Iran June 3, 2024. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that the turnout in the first round of the country's presidential election was "lower than expected", semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.
Turnout was about 40%, Iran's interior ministry said - the lowest on record since the 1979 revolution.
"We hope that people's turnout for the second round will be important and a source of pride for the Islamic Republic," Khamenei said, calling upon Iranians to cast their ballot this coming Friday.
Friday's vote will be a tight race between lawmaker Massoud Pezeshkian, the sole moderate in the original field of four candidates, and former Revolutionary Guards member Saeed Jalili.
The election is to elect a successor to President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May.
Khamenei added that the lower-than-expected turnout was due to "several factors" and that claims that non-voters were against the Islamic Republic were "strongly mistaken".
Reporting by Dubai Newsroom, Elwely Elwelly; Editing by Michael Georgy and Alex Richardson
Mediators in the Iran war are stepping up efforts to get the Strait of Hormuz reopened, with Tehran agreeing to draw up a list of conditions to restore normal traffic after a Qatari emissary pressed the Iranians to respect freedom of navigation.
Six months after the airstrikes that began the war and propelled a badly wounded Mojtaba Khamenei into the role of Iran's supreme leader, he remains entirely unseen and unheard by Iranians — a vacuum at the heart of his country's leadership.
Iran's Security Chief Mohsen Rezaei said a report about a potential plot to assassinate U.S. President Donald Trump's youngest son is a lie, in an interview broadcast by Lebanon's Al Manar TV on Thursday.
To make this website run properly and to improve your experience, we use cookies. For more detailed information, please check our Cookie Policy.
Necessary cookies enable core functionality. The website cannot function properly without these cookies, and can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences.