Preliminary results of the vote count in Iran’s presidential election began to emerge on Saturday morning, with Massoud Pazeshkian leading the race.

Iran’s Interior Ministry announced that after counting more than 19 million votes, reformist candidate Masoud Bazeshkian remains in the lead with more than 8 million votes, followed by Saeed Jalili with more than 7 million votes.

Conservative candidate Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf is currently in third place with more than 2 million votes, while Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the only cleric among the candidates, is in fourth place with more than 150,000 votes.
-The total number of valid and invalid votes is 19 million, 62,000 and 13.
If no candidate receives 50 per cent plus one vote, a run-off between the top two candidates will be held on July 5.

Iran is holding a snap presidential election after President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash on 19 May.