TEHRAN — Iran’s judiciary chief won the country’s presidential election in a landslide victory Saturday. Final results showed Ebrahim Raisi won 17.9 million votes in the contest, dwarfing those of the race’s reformist candidate.
Mohsen Rezaei won 3.4 million votes and reformist Abdolnasser Hemmati got 2.4 million, said Jamal Orf, the head of Iran’s Interior Ministry election headquarters. The race’s fourth candidate, Amirhussein Ghazizadeh Hashemi, had around 1 million votes, Orf said.
Congratulations poured in even before official results were announced. Iran’s outgoing President Hassan Rouhani said his successor had been elected in the previous day’s vote, without naming Raisi.
“I congratulate the people on their choice,” said Rouhani. “My official congratulations will come later, but we know who got enough votes in this election and who is elected today by the people.”
The only reformist in the race, former central bank governor Abdolnasser Hemmati, also tweeted his congratulations to Raisi.
“I hope your administration provides causes for pride for the Islamic Republic of Iran, improves the economy and life with comfort and welfare for the great nation of Iran,” he wrote.
The other two principlist candidates -- Rezai and Ghazizadeh-Hashemi -- explicitly congratulated Raisi.
On Twitter, Rezaei praised Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and the Iranian people for taking part in the vote.
“God willing, the decisive election of my esteemed brother, Ayatollah Dr. Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi, promises the establishment of a strong and popular government to solve the country’s problems,” Rezaei wrote.
“I congratulate ... Raisi, elected by the nation,” Ghazizadeh-Hashemi said.
Balloting came to a close at 2.a.m. Saturday, after the government extended voting to accommodate crowding at several polling places nationwide. Paper ballots, stuffed into large plastic boxes, were to be counted by hand through the night, and authorities said they expected to have initial results and turnout figures Saturday morning at the earliest.
Ayatollah Khamenei praised the “epic” turnout in the election, saying the “great” winners of the key vote are the people themselves, whose iron will was broken by neither the pandemic nor attempts at frustrating them.
In a message addressed to the Iranian nation on Saturday, the Leader thanked the people for turning out en masse in the June 18 elections to choose a new president and representatives to the city and village councils and said their “epic, passionate participation” added “a new shining page to their honors.”
“Among the factors that could have each diminished participation in the elections, pleasant scenes of your gatherings at polling stations countrywide were a clear sign of your iron will, hopeful heart, and vigilant eyes,” the Leader said.
“The great winner of the elections yesterday was the Iranian nation, which stood up once again in the face of the propaganda campaign waged by the enemy’s mercenary media and temptations of the ill-wishers and showed off its presence in the heart of the political field,” he added.
Ayatollah Khamenei said nothing could break the Iranian nation’s will and hamper the election; neither complaints about livelihood issues, nor threats of the outbreak, nor the propagating opposition which had started from months before to frustrate the people, nor the irregularities that briefly disrupted voting in the early hours of the election day.
The Leader thanked the nation and the institutions in charge of holding, overseeing, and providing security to the elections.
Ayatollah Khamenei offered congratulations to the nation for its victory in the elections besides those elected by the people. He also advised the president-elect and those elected to represent people

at the City and Village Council to fully shoulder the responsibilities assigned to them by the country’s law.
Russian President Vladimir Putin became the first foreign leader to offer congratulations to Raisi on his victory.
In a message, Putin hailed friendship and good neighborly ties between Iran and Russia, expressing hope that the two nations would keep moving toward closer constructive cooperation on issues of bilateral and international significance.
For his part, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad congratulated Raisi on behalf of his nation for “winning the trust” of Iranians and wished for Iran’s continued progress and welfare.
“I wish for your country to move forward on the path of progress and bring about prosperity in all fields for the people, who have withstood all the conspiracies and pressures mean to break their will,” he said.
“I take this opportunity to express my eagerness for closer cooperation in promoting bilateral relations between the Syrian Arab Republic and the Islamic Republic and pursuing common interests,” Assad said.
Iraqi President Barham Salih and Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi also felicitated Raisi on securing an overwhelming majority of the votes.
The secretary-general of Iraq’s Al-Nujaba resistance movement, Sheikh Akram al-Ka’abi, sent a similar note to the president-elect, expressing hope for closer ties between the two neighboring nations during Raisi’s term.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister also took to Twitter to hail Raisi’s “landmark” election win, saying he hoped the two nations would broaden neighborly ties under Raeisi.
“Congratulations to Excellency brother Ibrahim Raisi @raisi_com on his landmark victory in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s 13th Presidential elections. Look forward to working with him for further strengthening of our fraternal ties and for regional peace, progress and prosperity,” read his tweet.
In a message, Yousef al-Hasseinah, a senior member of the Gaza-based Islamic Jihad offered congratulations to the Iranian nation for marking a big win in the election and hailed its support for the Palestinian resistance.