Iran’s hardline candidate Ebrahim Rais, the conservative head of the judiciary, has taken an overwhelming lead in presidential election after 90 percent of the votes were counted, the interior ministry said on Saturday.
Raisi received over 17.8 million votes out of the 28.6 million votes that have been counted, the interior ministry said based on preliminary results.
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Earlier in the day three out of four candidates in the fray conceded defeat hours before the interior ministry was to announce the official results.
Raisi, a protégé of Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei, was widely seen as the frontrunner in Friday’s election marred by low turnout and the disqualification of many candidates.
Moderate candidate Abdolnaser Hemmati congratulated Raisi for winning the election. “I hope your government, under the leadership of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, will bring comfort and prosperity to our nation,” former central bank chief Hemmati said in a letter, state media reported on Saturday.
Raisi did not immediately acknowledge Hemmati’s concession, nor that of former Revolutionary Guard commander Mohsen Rezaei, who also conceded a loss.
The other conservative candidate, Amir Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi, explicitly congratulated Raisi.
“I congratulate … Raisi, elected by the nation,” Hashemi said, quoted by Iranian media.
In a statement, instead of congratulating Raisi, outgoing President Hassan Rouhani congratulated the people of Iran and the supreme leader for an “epic and rare presence” in the elections, saying “your glorious and enemy-breaking participation led to the remorse and dejection of enemies and those who wish ill on this nation”.
Earlier Rouhani congratulated “the people’s elected [president]”, without naming Raisi.
