Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence announced on Sunday the arrest of “elements” who were planning to carry out “terrorist” operations during the presidential elections, according to the Tasnim news agency, without providing further details.
On Saturday, the Iranian Election Commission announced that a runoff for the presidential elections will be held next Friday between Masoud Pezeshkian and Saeed Jalili, who received the highest votes but neither managed to secure an outright win in the first round.
The decision to hold early presidential elections followed the death of President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and their accompanying team last month in a helicopter crash in the northwest of the country.
Iran’s presidential elections were held last Friday. The Election Committee announced that a runoff election would take place next Friday between Masoud Pezeshkian and Saeed Jalili, who received the highest number of votes but did not secure a decisive victory in the first round.
According to Tasnim News Agency, the official results of the first round showed that Pezeshkian received 10,415,191 votes, Jalili received 9,473,298 votes, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf received 3,383,340 votes, and Mostafa Pourmohammadi received 206,397 votes.
The total number of votes cast, according to the final results, was 24,535,185, with a participation rate of 40 percent.
A spokesperson for the Election Committee stated, “Since none of the candidates secured a majority of the votes, the election has proceeded to a second round according to the law. The second round of the election will be held on Friday, July 5th, across the entire country.”
