Reformist Masoud Pezeshkian leads hard-liner Saeed Jalili in Iran presidential runoff election

Reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian’s lead over hard-liner Saeed Jalili has widened to over 2 million votes as counting continues in Iran’s presidential runoff election. Mohsen Eslami, an election spokesperson, said early Saturday that Pezeshkian had 11.1 million votes, leading Jalili’s 9 million. He gave no total turnout figure as counting went on. The first round of voting June 28 saw the lowest turnout in the history of the Islamic Republic since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iranian officials long have pointed to turnout as a sign of support for the country’s Shiite theocracy, which has been under strain after years of sanctions crushing Iran’s economy, mass demonstrations and intense crackdowns on all dissent.