Candidate Ebrahim Raisi received congratulations from all his rivals for winning the Iranian presidential elections, and outgoing President Hassan Rouhani confirmed that the decision had been achieved in the first round, but he refused to mention the name of the winner before the official results were announced.
The authorities have not yet announced the results, as the vote counting process has not been completed, and the percentage of participation in this poll has not been revealed.
Today, Saturday, local media quoted the moderate candidate, Abdel Nasser Hemmati, the former central bank governor, as saying in a letter to his conservative rival, Ibrahim Raisi, "I hope that your government under the leadership of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will achieve prosperity and prosperity for our nation."
Ebrahim Raisi heads the judiciary in Iran, is one of the senior officials covered by US sanctions, and is believed to have the support of the Revolutionary Guards, and he lost the elections to Rouhani in 2017.
In a televised speech, Rouhani congratulated "the president elected by the people," without naming the president, and said, "Since the official result has not yet been announced, I will postpone the official congratulation. But it is clear who got the votes."
The counting of votes continues after the closure of the polling stations, after voting was extended until two in the morning local time (+4:30 GMT), while the turnout is the most prominent challenge in these elections.
The Iranian Interior Ministry's Election Committee had extended voting in the presidential elections until two o'clock on Saturday morning, while a spokesman for the Guardian Committee said that polling stations should remain open as long as there were voters who wanted to vote.
Four candidates from the conservative and moderate currents competed in these elections: President of the Judiciary Council Ibrahim Raisi, former director of the Central Bank of Iran Abdolnaser Hemmati, Mohsen Rezaei, and Qazizadeh Hashemi.
The campaigns of the two candidates, Raisi, Hemti and Hashemi, had earlier called for an extension of the voting process.
"I urge everyone, whatever their political viewpoint, to vote," official media quoted candidate Ibrahim Raisi as saying after casting his ballot.
The head of the government's National Monitoring Center described participation in the Iranian presidential elections as good, without giving any figures related to the percentage of voting, given that the number of eligible voters exceeds 59 million.
For its part, the Guardian Council said that any unofficial reports on the percentage of participation in the elections are unfounded, stressing the need to rely only on the reports of official institutions.
Parliament spokesman Abbas Kadakdayi had previously acknowledged the existence of technical problems that coincided with the start of the elections, but they were resolved, without prejudice to the electoral process.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei casts his vote in the presidential elections at a polling station in Tehran (Anatolia)
Invitations to intensify participation
While casting his vote in Tehran, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called on voters to participate strongly in the elections, and said that the people will decide the country's fate for the coming years through their participation in those elections.
President Rouhani also called on citizens to vote en masse and put aside the problems experienced in the stage of submitting candidates for elections, and said that citizens should realize the importance of these elections for their fate and the fate of the republic.
For his part, moderate candidate in the Iranian presidential elections, Abdel Nasser Hemmati, said that he would end the international isolation that Iran is experiencing if he wins the elections.
After casting his vote, Hemmati added that Iranians have the right to improve their living and economic conditions, stressing that the next president should focus on promoting development.
The participation of an Iranian family in the elections (Al-Jazeera)
Ahmadinejad criticizes and Khatami is elected
In turn, former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that he will not vote in the Iranian presidential elections and will not support any candidate in them, adding that the way the elections were conducted is not in the interest of the country and negatively affects national interests.
In turn, the former reformist president of Iran, Mohammad Khatami, cast his vote in the Iranian presidential elections in Hosseiniya Jamaran (north of Tehran).
Khatami, one of the most prominent figures of reformists in Iran, called on Iranian citizens to participate massively in the elections to thwart any scheme that contradicts the concept of the republic, as he put it.
Ibrahim Raisi
For its part, the French Press Agency said that Raisi's victory would strengthen the conservative movement's grip on the joints of the ruling bodies in the republic, after its broad victory in the Shura Council elections last year.
Raisi's campaign filed a complaint with the Electoral Publicity Committee, noting that a number of polling stations have experienced malfunctions since the centers opened this morning.
These elections come in light of an economic and social crisis caused mainly by US sanctions, and exacerbated by the Corona pandemic.