DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (news agencies) — Reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian’s lead against hard-liner Saeed Jalili widened early Saturday to over 2 million votes as counting continued in Iran’s presidential runoff election.
Supporters of Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon and longtime lawmaker, entered the streets of Tehran and other cities before dawn to celebrate as his lead grew over Jalili, a hard-line former nuclear negotiator.
But a possible Pezeshkian win still sees Iran at a delicate moment, with tensions high in the Mideast over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, Iran’s advancing nuclear program and a looming U.S. election that could put any chance of a detente between Tehran and Washington at risk.
Mohsen Eslami, an election spokesperson, said Pezeshkian had 11.1 million votes, leading Jalili’s 9 million. He gave no total turnout figure as counting went on.
The first round of voting June 28 saw the lowest turnout in the history of the Islamic Republic since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iranian officials have long pointed to turnout as a sign of support for the country’s Shiite theocracy, which has been under strain after years of sanctions crushing Iran’s economy, mass demonstrations and intense crackdowns on all dissent.
Government officials up to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei predicted a higher participation rate as voting got underway, with state television airing images of modest lines at some polling centers across the country.
However, online videos purported to show some polls empty while a survey of several dozen sites in the capital, Tehran, saw light traffic amid a heavy security presence on the streets.
Vahdat reported from Tehran, Iran. Nasser Karimi in Tehran contributed to this report.
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