A reformist candidate critical of many of the Iranian government’s policies, including the mandatory head scarf law, will compete next week against a hard-line conservative in a runoff election for the country’s presidency, Iran’s interior ministry announced on Saturday. The runoff follows a special vote called after the death last month of the previous leader, Ebrahim Raisi, in a helicopter crash.
A second round of voting, which will pit the reformist, Masoud Pezeshkian, against Saeed Jalili, an ultraconservative former nuclear negotiator, will take place on July 5. The runoff was in part the result of low voter turnout and a field of three main candidates, two of whom competed for the conservative vote. Iranian law requires a winner to receive more than 50 percent of all votes cast.
The majority of Iranians, 60 percent, according to the interior ministry, did not vote on Friday, in what analysts and aides to the candidates said was largely an act of protest against the government for ignoring their demands for meaningful change.
A prominent Iranian economist, Siamak Ghassemi, said on social media that the voters were sending a clear message. “In one of the most competitive presidential elections, where reformists and conservatives came to the field with all their might, a 60 percent majority of Iranians are through with reformist and conservatives.”
Iran is facing multiple challenges, from domestic turmoil to international tensions. Its economy is cratering under punishing Western sanctions, its citizens’ freedoms are increasingly curtailed and its foreign policy is largely shaped by hard-line leaders.
The campaign, which initially included six candidates — five conservatives and one reformist — was notable for how candidly those issues were discussed and a public willingness to attack the status quo. In speeches, televised debates and round-table discussions, the candidates criticized government policies and ridiculed rosy official assessments of…