The vote counting is in progress in Iran’s snap presidential election with preliminary results announced by the country's election headquarters pointing to a neck-to-neck fight between two candidates.
After the count of more than 24.5 million votes, it appears to be a close contest between former health minister and senior lawmaker Masoud Pezeshkian and former lead nuclear negotiator and chief of the top security body Saeed Jalili.
The other two hopefuls – parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and former interior affairs minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi – are trailing behind at the moment.
Should the current trend continue, Pezeshkian and Jalili would head into a runoff set for July 5. The second round is required if no candidate wins 50 percent of the vote, plus one.
Mohsen Eslami, spokesperson for Iran's election headquarters, has so far given nine updates on the results, the first of which came at around 3:25 am local time.
The latest update at around 11:37 a.m. local time showed Pezeshkian holding his lead with 10,415,991 votes out of 24,535,185 votes counted so far. Jalili edged closer with 9,473,298 votes.
Qalibaf and Pourmohammadi both trailed behind with 3,383,340 and 206,397 votes respectively.
The eighth update at around 9:40 a.m. local time showed Pezeshkian consolidating his lead with 8,302,577 votes out of 19,069,713 votes counted so far. Jalili was behind him with 7,189,756 votes.
Qalibaf and Pourmohammadi both trailed behind with 2,676,512 and 158,314 votes respectively.
🔴UPDATE
— Iran Election 2024 (@PressTVElection) June 29, 2024
Latest results released by the Interior Ministry show that presidential candidate Masoud Pezeshkian is now ahead of three other candidates, with 8,302,577 votes. #IranVotes2024 pic.twitter.com/ycr9LVdtsz
In the seventh announcement at around 8:15 a.m. local time, Pezeshkian built up on his lead with 5,955,781 votes out of 14,070,462 votes counted so far. Jalili was behind him with 5,560,321 votes.
Qalibaf and Pourmohammadi both trailed behind with 1,891,385 and 111,967 votes respectively.
🔴UPDATE
— Iran Election 2024 (@PressTVElection) June 29, 2024
Latest results released by the Interior Ministry show that presidential candidate Masoud Pezeshkian is now ahead of three other candidates, with 5,955,781 votes. #IranVotes2024 pic.twitter.com/Ykx8kwFnph
In the previous announcement at around 6:50 a.m. local time, the sixth one, Pezeshkian edged past Jalili with 5,000,354 votes compared to Jalili’s 4,875,269 out of 12,058,843 votes counted.
Qalibaf and Pourmohammadi, like in previous announcements, were behind with 1,620,628 and 95,172 votes respectively.
🔴UPDATE
— Iran Election 2024 (@PressTVElection) June 29, 2024
Latest results released by the Interior Ministry show that presidential candidate Masoud Pezeshkian is now ahead of three other candidates, with 5,000,354 votes. #IranVotes2024 pic.twitter.com/kdMHoBunWP
The fifth announcement came at around 5:45 a.m. local time when out of 10,366,410 votes counted, Jalili was leading with 4,266,386 votes, followed by Pezeshkian with 4,244,815 votes.
Qalibaf and Pourmohammadi were trailing with 1,385,083 and 80,506 votes respectively.
UPDATE
— Iran Election 2024 (@PressTVElection) June 29, 2024
According to the latest results released by the Interior Ministry, presidential candidate Saeed Jalili is ahead of three other candidates, including Masoud Pezeshkian, with 4,266,386 votes.#IranVotes2024 pic.twitter.com/krTHasLeii
The fourth announcement came at around 5:00 a.m. local time when out of 8,379,341 votes counted, Jalili was in the pole position with 3,505,191 votes, followed by Pezeshkian with 3,389,191 votes.
Qalibaf and Pourmohammadi were behind them with 1,116,659 and 62,310 votes respectively.
Principlist candidate Saeed Jalili is now ahead of three other candidates including reformist Pezeshkian according to latest results #IranVotes2024 pic.twitter.com/CfWUCiPFYQ
— Iran Election 2024 (@PressTVElection) June 29, 2024
The third announcement came at around 4:30 a.m. local time when out of 5,852,805 votes counted, Pezeshkian led with 2,410,760 votes, followed by Jalili with 2,408,079 votes.
Qalibaf and Pourmohammadi followed them with 780,202 and 40,428 votes respectively.
The second announcement came at around 4:00 a.m. local time when out of 3,889,248 votes counted, Pezeshkian was ahead with 1,595,248 votes, followed by Jalili with 1,594,868 votes.
Qalibaf and Pourmohammadi were in the third and fourth positions with 544,144 and 25,538 votes respectively.
The first announcement of the preliminary results came at around 3:25 a.m. local time.
Out of 2,372,866 votes counted, Pezeshkian was leading with 9783,052 votes, followed by Jalili with 963,615. Qalibaf and Pourmohammadi trailed behind with 341,056 and 15,625 votes respectively.
Polls close and vote counting begins in Iran presidential election
— Iran Election 2024 (@PressTVElection) June 28, 2024
#IranVotes2024 https://t.co/Fl4J276bjz
Voting was extended three times on Friday, each time by two hours, after 6:00 p.m. local time when the polling was supposed to close as per the Constitutional requirement of a 10-hour voting period.
The voting lines finally closed at midnight after which the vote counting began at thousands of polling stations scattered across the country, including more than 6,000 in the capital Tehran.
The snap presidential election was called after President Ebrahim Raeisi passed away in a helicopter crash with seven others on May 19.
More than 61 million Iranians were eligible to vote in Friday's election, many of them first-time voters.