Iran: Ebrahim Raïssi elected president with 62% of the vote, according to partial results
The ultra-conservative Ebrahim Raïssi won Friday's Iranian presidential election in the first round with over 62% of the vote.
Out of 28.6 million ballots counted, he obtained "more than 17.8 million votes".
AFP - ATTA KENARE
Text by: RFI Follow
5 mins
The ultra-conservative won the Iranian presidential election on Friday, June 18 in the first round with more than 62% of the vote, according to partial official results published this Saturday, June 19 at the end of the morning.
Out of 28.6 million ballots counted, Ebrahim Raïssi obtained "more than 17.8 million votes", declared Jamal Orf, president of the National Electoral Commission at a press conference in Tehran.
Publicity
Read more
At midnight, the turnout was 47%.
This rate could increase a little further, since some polling stations in large cities, especially in Tehran, remained open until two in the morning, explains our special correspondent in Tehran,
Oriane Verdier
.
For the moment, the partial results put
the ultra-conservative candidate Ebrahim Raïssi in the lead
, with 62% of the votes, or 17.8 million votes.
Behind him come the blank and null votes, which create the surprise, by counting 13% of the ballots.
Just like the abstention rate, which we already knew was very high.
It is a new expression of the lack of identification of the population with the political class, particularly during these elections, where the candidatures of the main adversaries of Ebrahim Raïssi were invalidated.
In third place comes Mohsen Rézaï, with 12%, or 3.3 million votes.
This conservative candidate finally counts the same number of votes as in the previous election.
He has a loyal electorate, mostly from his ethnic group, in the southwest of the country.
Finally, the only candidate identified as a reformer, Abdolnasser Hemmati, so far only gathers 8% of the votes, or 2.4 million votes.
This was the great unknown of the election, as reformist voters were divided between two strategies: supporting their only hope or boycotting what they see as an electoral coup.
Ebrahim Raïssi is in any case guaranteed to win in the first round.
Now there is no doubt that he is the new Iranian president, according to our correspondent in Tehran,
Siavosh Ghazi
.
Raïssi's victory recognized by his adversaries
“
I congratulate the people for their choice.
[...] We know who had enough votes during this election and who is elected today by the people
”, declared in a televised speech the outgoing president Hassan Rohani, without giving the name of his successor.
In messages on Instagram, on Twitter or relayed by the Iranian media, the deputy Amirhossein Ghazizadeh-Hachémi, the former commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guards Mohsen Rézaï and the former president of the Central Bank Abdolnasser Hemmati, competitors of 'Ebrahim Raïssi, in their own way recognized his victory.
According to state media, the count was still underway as of early morning.
Participation figures and final results are expected before noon.
Official data could give the lie to the rare polls available which gave a record abstention of around 60% before the election.
An election without real adversaries
Head of the Judicial Authority, Ebrahim Raïssi, 60, was arch-favorite, for lack of real competition after the
disqualification of his main opponents
.
The electoral campaign was bland, against a background of general fed up with the crisis, in a country rich in hydrocarbons, but subject to heavy American sanctions.
Presenting himself as the champion of the fight against corruption and the defender of the popular classes with purchasing power undermined by inflation, Ebrahim Raïssi is the only one of the four candidates to have truly campaigned.
Reelected in 2017 in the first round against Ebrahim Raïssi who then obtained 38% of the vote, President Hassan Rouhani, a moderate who will leave power in August, ends his second term at a level of unpopularity rarely reached.
An "
organized
"
election
, according to some abstainers
In Tehran, it is not complicated to find
abstainers
accusing the government of having "
done nothing
" for the country or not seeing the point of participating in an election that is decided in advance, or even according to them "
organized
" to allow Ebrahim Raïssi to win.
Faced with calls for a boycott launched by the opposition in exile, and by some dissidents in Iran, Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei has stepped up calls to participate en masse in the ballot.
Without calling for abstention, former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a populist who had seen his candidacy invalidated in May, denounced an election organized "
against the interests of the country
" and announced his decision, in a personal capacity, not to participate. to “
this sin
”.
(and with
AFP)
►
To listen
: Presidential election in Iran: what aspirations of the youth?
Newsletter
Receive all international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Iran
On the same subject
Presidential election in Iran: abstainers, poll referees
7 billion neighbors
Presidential election in Iran: what aspirations of the youth?
Decryption
Presidential election in Iran: expected surge of ultraconservatives