Who is running in Iran's elections and what could it mean for the country?
Words by ITV News Producer Alicia Curry
Iranians are heading to the polls on Friday in a snap presidential election following the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in May.
The vote comes at a delicate time for a country facing unprecedented challenges at home and abroad.
The Islamic Republic’s economy remains cramped by Western sanctions while young people are becoming growingly restive to the theocratic Shia government.
Iran’s political system means the president has limited power. The Islamic Republic’s supreme leader - the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - maintains direct or indirect control of all branches of government, as well as of the military and the media.
But the next president could have a significant impact on daily life, including religious requirements and dress restrictions - consequential in a country recently rocked by protests demanding freedom for women in the theocracy.
Votes could be tallied as soon as Sunday, but experts think it is likely that none of the contenders will win a simple majority, in which case Iranians will take to the polls once more on July 5 for a runoff election between the two front-runners.
ITV News takes a look at the hard-liners and reformists running in the presidential race and what the election could mean for the country's political landscape.
Who is running?
Saeed Jalili
The 58-year-old Jaili is a hardline politician and former senior nuclear negotiator.
He ran in Iran’s 2013 presidential election and registered in 2021 before withdrawing to support Raisi.
He maintains that Iran does not need to negotiate over its nuclear programme with the West.
Masoud Pezeshkian
A 69-year-old heart surgeon, Pezeshkian is the only reformist candidate among the hardline figures seeking the presidency.
He’s said he’d want to renegotiate with the West to try and restart some version of the 2015 nuclear deal.
He’s put the need for the deal in economic terms, saying Iran needs to communicate with the world.
Iran’s former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who served under the relative-moderate President Hassan Rouhani and helped strike the nuclear deal, has backed him.
However, analysts believe Pezeshkian would need a heavy turnout to win - which is unlikely, given the current apathy gripping the nation.
His campaign has so far focused on the youth vote, women and Iran’s ethnic minorities.
Mostafa Pourmohammadi
Pourmohammadi, 64, is the only Shiite cleric running in the election.
He served as interior minister under hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and later as justice minister under Rouhani.
In 2006, the United States State Department referred to Pourmohammadi as a “notorious human rights violator” for a leading role in the 1988 mass execution of several thousand political prisoners at Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.
The State Department also linked him to the so-called “chain murders” of activists and others in the 1990s.
He’s insisted the next president must deal with the world and criticized Iran’s arming of Russia in the war in Ukraine - not because of the killing of civilians, but because he felt Tehran wasn’t getting enough back from Moscow for its support.
His campaign likely is counting on the backing of clerics and traditionalists.
Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf
The Iranian parliament speaker, Qalibaf, 62, is the highest-ranking official within the theocracy to be seeking the presidency.
Analysts suggest he’s the front-runner in the campaign, with Jalili as a second.
Qalibaf is a former Tehran mayor with close ties to the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. Many remember that Qalibaf - as a former Guard general - was part of a violent crackdown on Iranian university students in 1999.
Qalibaf maintains that he, as a strong manager, can save Iran from the crisis. Qalibaf has focused on the middle class, as well as promising more cash handouts for the poor.
Will turnout be low?
Since the helicopter crash that killed former president Ebrahim Raisi, Khamenei has mentioned in at least three speeches that his priority in this election is “high voter turnout.”
But this is unlikely. The June 28 poll also comes amid dwindling trust in the establishment, leading to plummeting electoral turnouts in a country that has traditionally boasted exceptionally high voter participation.
Many Iranians are calling for a boycott of the election.
In the parliamentary and Assembly of Experts elections that took place in March, Iran recorded its lowest turnout since the Islamic Republic’s founding in 1979, despite government efforts to rally voters ahead of the ballot.
The Iranian Minister of Interior said that more than 61 million people inside Iran have the right to vote and thousands of the Iranian diaspora will also be casting their vote.
There are 58,640 polling stations across Iran, and there are also 340 polling stations in 100 countries for Iranians abroad.
The first ballot was cast on Friday morning.
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