ISLAMABAD, Jun 19 (APP): As vote count still goes on, the preliminary results indicate that Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raisi is set to become next Iranian president having obtained 17.8 million votes of 28.6 million ballots counted so far.
According to Iran’s Deputy Interior Minister and Head of Election Office Jamal Araf announced that 28.6 million ballots had been counted which showed that Raisi obtained 17.8 million votes.
Other rivals Mohsen Rezaei Mirqaed has 3.3 million votes so far and Abdolnaser Hemmati and Amir Hossein Ghazizadeh have obtained 2.4 million and one million votes respectively.
Though the final result is yet to be announced, Raisi’s competitors including Rezaei, Hemmati and Ghazizadeh had already congratulated him for the obvious victory in their separate message, Iranian news agency IRNA reported.
Saeed Jalili, Mohsen Mehralizadeh and Alireza Zakani, three other presidential candidates, dropped out of the presidential race.
The polling for presidential election started across the country as well as in 133 countries on June 18 morning and the closing time was extended twice until 2:00 AM June 19.
Outgoing President Hassan Rouhani visited Raisi at his office to felicitate him. “We will stand by and cooperate fully with the president-elect for the next 45 days, when the new government takes charge,” Rouhani was quoted as saying by state media.
From now on, the president and all his cabinet members are fully prepared to serve the President-elect, he added.
President Rouhani highlighted that since August 3, 2021, Raisi is the president of all Iranians and everyone will fully support him and his legitimate government.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also urged the president-elect and those elected as village and city councilors in Friday’s nationwide elections to take the chance to serve the Iranian nation.
Neither the propaganda of hostile countries, nor the difficulty of making a living for the poor or the threat of the pandemic were able to disrupt the determination of the Iranian nation, Ayatollah Khamenei added.
Appointed by the Supreme Leader as judiciary chief in 2019, Raisi was placed under US sanctions over human rights violations.
