Iran will hold a runoff vote next week after candidates Masoud Pezeshkian and Saeed Jalili failed to secure 50% of the votes, the country's interior ministry said Saturday.

Mohsen Eslami, an election spokesman, announced the result in a news conference carried by Iranian state television. He said of 24.5 million votes cast, Pezeshkian got 10.4 million while Jalili received 9.4 million. Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf got 3.3 million. Shiite cleric Mostafa Pourmohammadi had over 206,000 votes.

Iranian law requires that a winner gets more than 50% of all votes cast. If not, the race's top two candidates will advance to a runoff a week later. There's been only one runoff presidential election in Iran's history: in 2005, when hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad bested former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Eslami acknowledged the country's Guardian Council would need to offer formal approval, but the result did not draw any immediate challenge from contenders in the race.

Out of Iran's 13 previous presidential elections since the Islamic revolution in 1979, only one has led to runoffs in 2005.

The Interior Ministry reported that more than 19,000,000 ballots had been counted so far.

Coming third in the early results is the conservative parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, with about 2,600,000 votes.

The fourth, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, a conservative cleric, had 158,314 votes.

Around 61 million Iranians were eligible to cast ballots in the elections that were originally scheduled for 2025 but were brought forward by the death of ultraconservative president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash last month.

The Guardian Council, which vets electoral candidates in the country, had originally approved six contenders.

But a day ahead of the election, two candidates -- the ultraconservative mayor of Tehran Alireza Zakani and Raisi's vice president Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh-Hashemi -- dropped out of the race.

In the 2021 elections that brought Raisi to power, the Council disqualified many reformists and moderates, prompting many voters to shun the polls.

The turnout then was just under 49%-- the lowest in any presidential election in Iran.

Friday's vote took place amid heightened regional tensions over the Gaza war, a dispute with the West over Iran's nuclear program and domestic discontent over the state of Iran's sanctions-hit economy.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called on people to participate in the vote.

Opposition groups, especially in the diaspora, meanwhile called for a boycott, questioning the credibility of elections.

Different camps

Pezeshkian, 69, is a heart surgeon who has represented the northern city of Tabriz in parliament since 2008.

He served as health minister under Iran's last reformist president Mohammad Khatami, who held office from 1997 to 2005 and has endorsed Pezeshkian's bid in the current elections.

Pezeshkian criticized Raisi's government for a lack of transparency during nationwide protests triggered by the September 2022 death in police custody of Mahsa Amini.

Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, had been arrested for allegedly violating the country's strict dress code for women.

In recent campaigning, Pezeshkian called for "constructive relations" with Washington and European capitals in order to "get Iran out of its isolation".

Ultraconservative Jalili, Iran's former nuclear negotiator, has maintained his uncompromising anti-West stance.

The 58-year-old has held several senior positions in the country, including in Khamenei's office in the early 2000s.

He is currently one of Khamenei's representatives in the Supreme National Security Council, Iran's highest security body.

On Saturday, Iranian reformist daily Sazandegi posted "Long live hope" on its front page, while the state-run daily Iran hailed the "strong" turnout.

Regardless of the result, Iran's next president will be in charge of applying state policy outlined by the supreme leader, who wields ultimate authority in the country.

Earlier, the local Tasnim news agency said militants in southeast Iran attacked a vehicle carrying ballot boxes in Sistan-Baluchistan province.

Two policemen were killed and others were injured in the attack, the agency added.