In the first round of the presidential elections in Iran, held on June 28, no candidate was able to win over 50% of the vote, the threshold for securing victory, necessitating a run-off vote, which is scheduled for Friday.

The two leading contestants in the first round will be on the ballot: Masoud Pezeshkian, who secured 42.5% of the vote in the first round, and Saeed Jalili, who received 38.7%.

Pezeshkian is considered the relatively moderate candidate among the six contestants approved by the Islamic Republic's Guardian Council, a panel of Islamic clerics and jurists, to run for the election.

Pezeshkian had wanted to run for the presidency in 2021 but the panel rejected his candidacy at the time.

Some see the council's decision to allow him to run for president this time around as a tactic to draw in more people to cast their ballots, in a bid to secure legitimacy for the vote.

But this move does not appear to have been successful, as evidenced by the record-low voter turnout of just 40% in the first round, the lowest figure since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

"It is unlikely that voter turnout will be much higher in the run-off election on Friday," said Hamidreza Azizi, an expert on Middle East affairs at the Berlin-based German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP).

"Masoud Pezeshkian has neither managed to mobilize reform-oriented voters, nor have the hard-liners been able to mobilize many voters. The hardliners are also so divided that they were unable to agree on a candidate."

Of the about 61 million Iranians eligible to vote, just over 13 million cast their ballots in the first round for the three hardline candidates:........

© Deutsche Welle