DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iranian citizens on Friday The late hardline president Ebrahim RaisiThe race’s only reformist candidate has vowed to forge “friendly relations” with the West, hoping to energize his supporters in a poll plagued by apathy.
Voters Faced with a choice The showdown between the hardline candidates and little-known reformist heart surgeon Massoud Pezechkian, who has been the most powerful leader since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Women and People Seeking Radical Change Candidates are barred from running, and the vote itself will not be monitored by internationally recognized observers.
The vote comes amid rising tensions in the Middle East. The war between Israel and Hamas Gaza Strip in April Iran launches first-ever direct attack on Israel The war in Gaza has seen militias such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels, both of which Iran has armed in the region, join the fighting and intensify attacks.
Meanwhile, Iran enrich uranium to near weapons-grade levels And they have stockpiled enough nuclear weapons to build multiple nuclear weapons if they choose to do so.
Pezeshkian’s comments came after he and his allies received an implicit warning from the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over their outreach to the United States.
More than 50 countries will hold elections in 2024
Pezeshkian’s comments after the vote were likely aimed at boosting voter turnout amid widespread public apathy in the Islamic Republic after years of economic crisis and mass protests. He appears to be hoping that the possibility of Iran emerging from its isolation will motivate people who are disillusioned with Iranian politics. Higher voter turnout often benefits people like Pezeshkian, who are involved in reform movements seeking to change Shiite theocracy from within.
An 85-year-old Iranian Khamenei Iran has the final say on all national affairs, allowing the president to steer the country’s policy toward confrontation or negotiations with the West. But voter turnout in recent elections has been at record lows, and it’s unclear how many Iranians will turn out to vote on Friday.
Pezeshkian, who voted at a hospital outside the capital, Tehran, appeared to have that in mind when answering a reporter’s question about how Iran would interact with the West if he became president.
“God willing, I will try to have friendly relations with all countries except Israel,” said the 69-year-old candidate. Israel, long Iran’s regional arch-rival, has faced intense criticism across the Middle East over its brutal war in the Gaza Strip.
He also responded to questions about a renewed crackdown on the hijab, or headscarf, requirement for women, less than two years ago. 2022 Death of Mahasa AminiThis sparked nationwide demonstrations and a violent response from security forces.
“No inhuman or violating act should be committed against our girls, our daughters and our mothers,” he said.
A higher turnout could improve Pezeshkian’s chances of victory — and because all of the country’s TV stations are state-owned and run by hard-liners — the candidate may have sought to amplify his message on social media — but it’s unclear whether he would be able to gain the momentum he needs to draw voters to the polls.
There were calls for a boycott, including of those incarcerated. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Narges MohammadiMir Hossein Mousavi, one of the leaders of the 2009 Green Movement and who is still under house arrest, has also refused to vote, along with his wife, his daughter said.
Critics say Pezeshkian is merely one of the government’s official candidates. In a documentary about him aired on state television, a woman said her generation was “moving toward the same level of hostility toward the government that Pezeshkian’s generation had during the 1979 revolution.”
Analysts have largely described the race as a three-way contest, with former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf as hardliners, and Shiite cleric Mostafa Pourmohammadi also remaining in the race, despite low support.
Pezeshkian has worked with figures such as former President Hassan Rouhani, who helped Iran secure the landmark nuclear deal with countries around the world in 2015.
Voting began shortly after President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump finished speaking. The first TV debate The Iran issue came up during the US presidential elections.
Trump said Iran was “broken” under his administration, highlighting his decision to launch a drone strike in 2020 to kill it. Revolutionary Guard General Qassem SoleimaniThe attack was part of a spiral of rising tensions between the United States and Iran since President Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from Iran’s 2018 nuclear deal with world powers.
Iranian state media made a point of publishing photos of voters lining up in the city of Kerman, near Soleimani’s grave. State television later aired images of polling stations across the country with few lines. Onlookers did not see particularly long lines at many polling stations in Tehran, reminiscent of the low voter turnout in Iran’s most recent parliamentary elections in March.
Khamenei was one of the first to vote in the election.
“An enthusiastic vote of the people and a larger number of voters is an absolute necessity for the Islamic Republic,” Khamenei said.
More than 61 million Iranians aged 18 and over are eligible to vote, of which 18 million are between the ages of 18 and 30.
Under Iranian law, a winner must receive at least 50 percent of the total votes; if they don’t, the top two candidates in the race advance to a runoff election a week later. Iran’s history has seen only one runoff presidential election, in 2005, when hardline candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defeated former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
63-year-old Raisi Died in a helicopter crash on May 19th He was a protégé of Khamenei and seen as a possible successor to the supreme leader after the killing of the foreign minister and others, but he is known to many for his role in Iran’s mass executions in 1988 and the bloody crackdown on dissent that followed protests over Amini’s death. Young woman in police custody She was accused of improperly wearing the mandatory headscarf, known as the hijab.
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Karimi reported from Tehran, Iran.
