Iranian voters expressed their discontent with the country’s clerical rule by turning out in record-low numbers for the presidential election on Friday. As a result, two candidates will now face a runoff.
The final choice will be between Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian, a reformist former health minister, and Saeed Jalili, an ultraconservative former nuclear negotiator. Neither candidate secured more than 50 percent of the vote, necessitating a runoff this coming Friday to decide who will address Iran’s struggling economy and the risk of a wider conflict in the Middle East.
The campaign was marked by open criticism of the status quo from both candidates, but the low turnout reflected widespread pessimism about the potential for change. Any new president must govern with the approval of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
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