Tehran: Following the death of ultra-militant president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash last month, Iran’s presidential election has opened.
Some 61 million Iranians are eligible to vote in the election, and 69-year-old reformer Masoud Pezeshkian is hoping to win over a divided conservative camp.
The Guardian Council, which oversees the candidates, has allowed them to challenge the conservative line currently dominated by parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.
Mostafa Pourmohammadi remains embroiled in controversy after the resignation of two ultra-conservatives – Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani and former vice president Raisi Amir-Hussein Gazizadeh Hashemi.
“We are starting the election,” Interior Minister Ahmad Wahidi said in a televised speech for the country’s 14th presidential election.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke shortly after polls opened and urged Iranians to vote.
“Election Day is a day of joy and happiness for Iranians,” he said.
“We invite our loved ones to take the issue of voting seriously and participate.”
The election in sanctions-hit Iran comes amid tensions in the region as the Gaza war escalates between the Islamic republic and arch-rivals Israel and the United States.
Polls opened at 8:00 am (0430 GMT) at 58,640 polling stations across the country, mostly in schools and mosques.
Polling stations will be open for 10 hours, although voting hours may be extended as in previous elections.
Preliminary results are expected from Saturday morning and official results are expected on Sunday.
If no candidate receives 50 percent of the vote, a runoff will be held on July 5, the second time in Iran’s electoral history since the 2005 election.
Pezeshkian’s candidacy, unknown until now, has revived cautious hopes for Iran’s reformist wing after years of dominance in the conservative and ultra-majority camps.
Iran’s last reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, praised him as “honest, fair and caring.”
Khatami, who served from 1997 to 2005, also supported Hassan Rouhani, the diplomat who won the presidency and signed Iran’s nuclear deal with Western powers in 2015 before withdrawing it three years later.
