Reformist To Face Hardliner In Presidential Run-Off

The Iranian presidential election will go to a second round run-off on Friday 5 July, with reformist candidate Massoud Pezeshkian up against conservative hardliner Saeed Jalili to succeed the late Ebrahim Raisi, who perished alongside Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian in a helicopter crash in May. This will be only the second presidential election since the 1979 revolution to go to a run-off following the 2005 contest that brought Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power.

• In the 28 June first round Pezeshkian won 44.3% of the vote, with Jalili on 40.3%. Speaker of the Iranian parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf caome in a distant third place with 14.3% support.
• Betting markets see Jalili as the favourite, with Polymarket giving the former nuclear negotiator a 66% implied probability of winning.
• Turnout in the first round is believed to be around the 40% mark, the lowest in Iran's history and a blow to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has made very public pronouncements calling for Iranians to turn up in significant numbers at the ballot.
• The Iranian president is an important figure in international relations, but most power in terms of policy setting resides with the Supreme Leader. Pezeshkian and Jalili come from the reformist and principalist camps respectively but both are fully supportive of the Ayatollah, meaning any significant break from Iran's recent policy direction is unlikely no matter the outcome of the election.