Iranian candidate vows to seek ‘friendly relations’ with West
Iranian women stand in a queue in Tehran yesterday as they wait to vote at a polling station to choose a successor to Ebrahim Raisi following his death in a helicopter crash in May. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA/via Reuters
Iranians voted yesterday in a snap election to replace the late hard-line president Ebrahim Raisi, with the race’s sole reformist candidate vowing to seek “friendly relations” with the West in an effort to energise supporters in a vote beset by apathy.
Voters faced a choice between hard-line candidates and the little-known reformist Masoud Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon. As has been the case since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, women and those calling for radical change were barred from running, while the vote itself had no oversight from internationally recognised monitors.
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