Tehran

Iranians began voting in the country's snap presidential polls on Friday (June 28), over a month after the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash last month. Top Iranian leaders, including the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, entered voting centers to cast their vote for country's president whose influence is regulated by an all-powerful Guardian Council of 12 clerics. 

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Around 61 million Iranians are eligible to vote in the polls. Of the six presidential candidates approved to run for presidency by the Guardian Council, two backed out less than 24 hours before the first ballot was cast. The field now consists of four candidates: reformist Masoud Pezeshkian, 69, and three Khamenei loyalists, namely the nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and cleric Mostafa Pourmohammadi.

Two ultraconservatives, who dropped out on June 27, are Tehran major Alireza Zakani and Raisi's former vice president Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi.

Also read | Iran elections: One reformist, three Khamenei loyalists to battle it out in June 28 polls

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Ahead of the voting, some Iranian citizens raised concerns about the state of country's economy which is still reeling under US sanctions despite Tehran's bettering financial partnerships with Moscow, Central Asian capitals, Islamabad and New Delhi. 

Speaking from Tehran's Tajrish market, Mohammed Mehdi, a student, hoped for a better state of higher education after Friday's polls. "The cost of education is my challenge as a student as it has gone rapidly up. The ease of access to higher education is what I expect which would eventually lead to a better economic situation," Mehdi told WION. 

Ali Akbar Hosseini, a street vendor, favoured parliamentary speaker Bagher Ghalibaf in the polls because they come from the same town: Torqabeh, near Mashhad, in the province of Razavi Khorasan over 900 km east of Tehran. 

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"I just feel its necessary for all of us to vote. My duty is to vote. People should do something to address their problems by voting and not leave everything to the government," Hosseini told WION. 

Also watch | Iran Presidential elections 2024: Iran begins voting in presidential election with limited choices

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Hassan Gudarzi, a student of mathematics, expected a future president to ensure better ties with neighbouring countries. 

"I expect more welfare by the government for the people and better relations with other countries specifically with neighbouring countries. There should be more diplomacy, more negotiations that would lead to making more relations with other countries which would be better for the country," Gudarzi told WION.

For overall stability in West Asia, Iran, with Beijing's mediation, restored its ties with Saudi Arabia in March 2023. But after its embassy in Syria was attacked in an alleged Israeli attack in April, Tehran launched missiles inside Israel earlier this year in a major escalation of a larger conflict in the region amid Israeli bombardments in Gaza. The attacks in the region by Iran-linked militia have been a major source of turbulence in West Asia.