(5 Jul 2024)
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Qarchak county, near Tehran, Iran - 5 July 2024
1. Various of hard-line Iranian presidential candidate Saeed Jalili surrounded by supporters in Qarchak county
2. Supporters chanting, UPSOUND (Farsi): "Peace be upon (Prophet) Mohammd, we sense the smell of (Ebrahim) Raisi!"
3. Jalili surrounded by supporters
4. Various of Jalili doing paperwork to vote
5. Various of Jalili casting ballot
6. SOUNDBITE (Farsi) Saeed Jalili, hard-line candidate:
"Dear people of Iran, today once again you showed the democratic face of the ruling system to the world. Today the entire world admits that it's the people who decide who's president for the next 4 years. This is your right to decide which person, which path and which approach should rule the country for the next 4 years."
7. Jalili waving at supporters
8. SOUNDBITE (Farsi) Saeed Jalili, hard-line candidate:
"God willing, as of tomorrow, whoever is elected by the people will be respected by everyone and will be the president of the whole nation. Everyone will help him, so that we can create 4 years of pride and magnificence for the country."
9. Various of Jalili and supporters
STORYLINE:
Hard-line Iranian presidential candidate Saeed Jalili, surrounded by a crowd of supporters, cast his ballot on Friday in a runoff election to replace the late President Ebrahim Raisi.
Raisi was killed in a May helicopter crash in the country’s northwest along with the foreign minister and several other officials.
The race between Jalili and Masoud Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon and longtime member of parliament, comes after a first round of voting saw the lowest turnout ever for an Iranian election, leaving turnout Friday a major question.
"Dear people of Iran, today once again you showed the democratic face of the ruling system to the world. Today the entire world admits that it's the people who decide who's president," Jalili said.
Both Jalili and Pezeshkian voted in southern Tehran, home to many poor neighborhoods, in a bid to boost turnout.
Though Pezeshzkian came out on top in the first round of voting on June 28, Jalili has been trying to secure the votes of people who supported hard-line parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who came in third and later endorsed the former negotiator.
After a record-low turnout in the first round of voting June 28, it remains unclear how many Iranians will take part in Friday’s poll.
Iranian law requires that a runoff if no one candidate gets more than 50% of all votes cast in the first round.
There have been calls for a boycott, including from imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, though potential voters in Iran appear to have made the decision not to participate last week on their own as there’s no widely accepted opposition movement operating within or outside of the country.
State television broadcast images of modest lines at select polling places around the country as polls opened Friday.
AP video shot by Mohsen Ganji
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