Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf

Iran's snap presidential election is set head to a second vote on July 5, with a reformist and conservative hardliner facing off to replace Ebrahim Raisi amid unprecedented voter apathy.

Iran's sole reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian and ultraconservative Saeed Jalili have qualified for a runoff presidential election after leading in the first round, an official said on Saturday.

Pezeshkian got more than 10,400,000 votes and Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator, has more than 9,400,000, said Mohsen Eslami, spokesman of Iran's election authority.

Reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian and ultraconservative Saeed Jalili are leading in Iran's presidential election, according to early results on Saturday from the Interior Ministry.

According to the latest count, Pezeshkian has won more than 8,300,000 votes and Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator, has above 7,100,000

Iranians go to the polls Friday to elect a new president after ultraconservative Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash last month, with a sole reformist among the candidates.

The election in sanctions-hit Iran comes at a time of high regional tensions between the Islamic republic and its arch-foes Israel and the United States as the Gaza war rages on.

Iranians will head to the polls the day after tomorrow, Friday, to elect a new president from a field of six candidates, including a relatively unknown reformist aiming to challenge conservative dominance.

Following the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash on Sunday afternoon, the heads of Iran's three branches of government have agreed to hold snap presidential elections on June 28, according to Press TV.

Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf said any negotiations with the United States would be "futile" as he delivered his first major speech to the conservative-dominated chamber on May 31.     

Iranian voters will decide the fate of moderate President Hassan Rouhani and his policy of engagement with the West on May 19 as he goes head-to-head with hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi.

Rouhani has spent four years trying to pull Iran out of its global isolation, reaching a 2015 deal with world powers that ended some sanctions in exchange for curbs to its nuclear program.

Iran's reformist former president Mohammad Khatami has skirted a media ban to endorse moderate incumbent Hassan Rouhani for a second term over conservative challengers in a May 19 election.

Iran's former hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday that he won't endorse other candidates in next month's election, after he and his deputy were barred from running.

"We clearly announce that we have not and will not support any candidate in the upcoming elections," he said in a letter, signed by himself and his former deputy and presidential hopeful Hamid Baghaie.