Polls Open for Iran’s Presidential Elections

Iranians were voting Friday in a snap election to replace the late President Ebrahim Raisi, killed in a helicopter crash last month, as public apathy has become pervasive in the Islamic Republic after years of economic woes, mass protests and tensions in the Middle East.
Voters face a choice between hardline candidates and a little-known politician who belongs to Iran’s reformist movement that seeks to change its Shia theocracy from within. As has been the case since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, women and those calling for radical change have been barred from the ballot while the vote itself will have no oversight from internationally recognized monitors.
The voting comes as wider tensions have gripped the Middle East over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. In April, Iran launched its first-ever direct attack on Israel over the war in Gaza, while militia groups that Tehran arms in the region are engaged in the fighting and have escalated their attacks.
Meanwhile, Iran continues to enrich uranium at near weapons-grade levels and maintains a stockpile large enough to build — should it choose to do so — several nuclear weapons. While Iran’s 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has the final say on all matters of state, presidents can bend the country’s policies toward confrontation or negotiation with the West.
However, given the record-low turnout in recent elections, it remains unclear just how many Iranians will take part in Friday’s poll.
Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, who is in charge of overseeing the election, announced all the polls had opened just at 8 a.m. local time.
Khamenei cast one of the election’s first votes, urging the public to turn out. State television later broadcast images of polling places across the country with modest lines.