Ebrahim Raeisi casts his ballot in Iran’s 2021 presidential candidate, in Shahr-e Rey, near Tehran. (Photo by Mehr news agency)
Tehran, June 19 (RHC)-- Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi has won Iran’s 2021 presidential election by a wide margin, according to preliminary results by the Interior Ministry.
Iranian Deputy Interior Minister Jamal Orf said 28.6 million Iranians participated in the election, and with around 90% of the votes counted, Raeisi garnered over 17.8 million votes, followed by Mohsen Rezaei who secured 3.3 million.
Nasser Hemmati garnered 2.4 million votes, and Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh-Hashemi won almost one million votes. Orf said he was not offering precise figures because vote counting was still ongoing and said he was merely providing preliminary updates.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani later visited the campaign HQ of Raeisi to congratulate him in person. In turn, Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf also sent a congratulatory note to Raeisi and said the legislative branch stood fully ready to cooperate with the president-elect’s administration.
The Parliament, he said, announces its readiness for all-out cooperation with the elected administration, and truly hopes for the opening of a new chapter in revolutionary and Jahadi (arduous) management toward the resolution of the people’s problems through congruence between the executive and legislative branches.”
Raeisi has been the chief of Iran’s Judiciary since 2019. The Muslim cleric has formerly held several other posts in Iran’s judicial branch since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Raeisi is associated with the Principlist camp, but he said he ran in the election this year as an independent when he announced his presidential bid last month. He was campaigning with the slogan “Popular Administration, Strong Iran” on a platform of uprooting corruption in the executive branch, fighting poverty, creating jobs, containing inflation, and corruption.
He was campaigning with the slogan “Popular Administration, Strong Iran” on a platform of uprooting corruption in the executive branch, fighting poverty, creating jobs, containing inflation, and corruption.