Ebrahim Raisi, the then Chief Justice of Iran, was declared the winner in a highly controversial election.

The election began with the mass disqualification of popular candidates by the Guardian Council, and broke records of the lowest turnout in Iranian electoral history (around 49%),[1] as well as had the highest share of protest blank, invalid and lost votes (around 13%)[2] despite a declaration by the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, considering protest voting religiously forbidden (haraam) as it would "weaken the regime.

Hassan Rouhani, the incumbent Iranian president, could not run for re-election under the constitution of Iran as he had already served his maximum two consecutive terms.

[11][10] The president of Iran is elected for a four-year term by universal adult suffrage with a minimum voting age of 18.

It is the country's highest directly elected official, the chief of the executive branch, and the second most important position after the Supreme Leader.

[19][20] After that, the elected president must recite and sign an oath in a session of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, in the presence of the members of the Guardian Council and the head of the Supreme Court.

The Guardian Council disqualified over 600 applicants, including all the women who had registered, ultimately approving seven candidates, three of whom withdrew days before the election.

[69] Incumbent President Rouhani predicted that the virus breakout could affect voter turnout.

[70][71] The government has limited the maximum number of people allowed to gather at polling places.

[84][85][86] The moderator asked every candidate different random questions, regarding economics, social and political, and people's issues.

He accused Reza'i of sabotaging the incumbent moderate government of Iran's effort to join the anti-money-laundering organization FATF and asked him whether it would be sane to solve the economic problems of Iran by taking American hostages (as Reza'i had indicated in a previous controversial interview).

Mehralizade, another moderate candidate, criticized Ra'isi for not having pursued an academic education besides having completed the six grades of school, and said that despite the respect he has for Ra'isi's Islamic Seminary Diploma, he does not believe that that is enough education for a person who wants to handle a country, and said that Ra'isi suffers from a "restless-position syndrome" (a humorous allusion to the "restless-hand syndrome" which is the Persian term for the Alien Hand Syndrome) for pursuing one high position after another.

(literate over 19 years old) The ISPA (Iranian Students Polling Agency) is considered as one of the most reliable pollsters in Iran.

[110] In some other major cities, such as Arak, Hamadan, Karaj,[111] and Ahvaz,[112] the largest number of the concurrent municipal elections votes were the invalid ones.

The exact number of votes each candidate received has not been yet released for every single Iranian province, though turnout for each is made public.

[2] For this reason, the ratio of received valid votes to all issued ballots is occasionally calculated by some sources and compared together and/or to that of the previous elections.

Upon being declared the winner, Raisi was congratulated by three of his four competitors on 19 June,[116] and president Rouhani paid a congratulatory visit to him that evening.