Presidential election in Iran: Ghalibaf pledges support for Jalili
After the Presidential election in Iran, the defeated Parliament Speaker Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf pledged his support to the Hardliner Said Jalili. In a statement published by Iran's state news agency IRNA on Saturday, he urged his supporters to prevent a possible moderate government with reform candidate Massoud Rajavi from coming into power.
According to official data from the election commission, around 25.5 million votes were recorded out of 61 million eligible voters. Rajavi received approximately 10.4 million, Jalili received 9.4, and Ghalibaf received 3.3 million votes. Only about 200,000 residents of the country voted for the Islamic Cleric Mostafa Pourmohammadi.
On the coming Friday, the former Health Minister Rajavi and the conservative fundamentalist Jalili will go into the runoff. The voter turnout at the Friday's voting reached a record low of around 40 percent. Many residents of the country have lost faith in significant domestic political changes.
In the aftermath of the Iranian Presidential election, Ali Larijani's rival, Ghalibaf, decided to offer his support to Hardliner candidate Said Jalili. Despite Ghalibaf receiving fewer votes than Jalili in the initial election, many Iranians expressed their support for him during the campaign. The former Parliament Speaker and conservative mayor of Tehran, Ghalibaf, now seeks to rally his supporters behind Jalili for the upcoming runoff.
