June 28 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Ministry of the Interior of Iran has extended until midnight (local time) the deadline to vote this Friday in the presidential elections, alleging a high influx of citizens to the polls, so the polling stations will be open for 16 hours.
Some 60,000 centers have been set up for these elections, in which more than 61 million citizens are called to participate. The schools opened at 8:00 a.m. and, although they were initially supposed to close at 8:00 p.m., the vote has been extended for another two two-hour stretches, according to official agencies due to a “high participation.”
Iranians are due to elect their next president in early elections following the death in a helicopter crash of the previous president, Ebrahim Raisi. The vote comes just months after legislative elections, which were marked by low turnout following calls for a boycott by the opposition.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for participation when he cast his vote on Friday. There are four candidates in the running, conservatives Mohamed Baqer Qalibaf, Said Jalili and Mostafa Purmohamad, and a single reformist, Masud Pezeshkian.
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