Iran’s ultraconservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi won 62 percent of the presidential election votes counted so far, officials said Saturday after Raisi’s rivals conceded defeat.
Raisi won more than 17.8 million votes out of 28.6 million ballots counted, far ahead of the second-placed candidate Mohsen Rezai, who won 3.3 million votes, election office chairman Jamal Orf said on state television after Friday’s vote.
The official said in televised remarks that Raisi had so far won 17.8 million votes. The official said more than 28 million
Iranians out of 59 million eligible voters had cast ballots.
Congratulations poured in for Raisi on Saturday for winning presidential elections even before official results were announced.
Iran’s outgoing moderate President Hassan Rouhani said earlier his successor had been elected in the previous day’s vote. “I congratulate the people on their choice,” said Rouhani. “My official congratulations will come later, but we know who got enough votes in this election and who is elected today by the people.”
The other two ultraconservative candidates — Mohsen Rezai and Amirhossein Ghazizadeh-Hashemi — explicitly congratulated Raisi.