Iran’s Raisi elected president

TEHRAN: Iran’s Ebrahim Raisi was elected president with about 62 per cent of the vote, according to figures released Saturday by Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli.

Voter turnout for Friday’s election was 48.8 percent of the more than 59 million eligible voters, he said — a record low for a presidential election in the Islamic republic.

In second place by a wide margin was Mohsen Rezai, a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who won 11.8 per cent.

He was followed in third place by former central bank chief Abdolnasser Hemmati, who scored 8.4 per cent.

Last placed out of the four candidates was Amirhossein Ghazizadeh-Hashemi, who won 3.5 per cent.

Over 3.7 million ballots were declared void — more votes than were won by second placed Rezai.

Three of the original seven candidates had dropped out two days before the election — Mohsen Mehralizadeh, Saeed Jalili and Alireza Zakani. –AFP

Mumtaz Alvi adds: Prime Minister Imran Khan Saturday congratulated ‘brother’ Ibrahim Raisi on his landmark election victory in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s 13th presidential elections and said he looked forward to working with him for further strengthening bilateral ties and regional peace.

Imran felicitated the president-elect in a tweet and said, “Congratulations to excellency brother Ibrahim Raisi on his landmark victory in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s 13th presidential elections”.