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DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that the turnout in the first round of the country's presidential election was "lower than expected", semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.
Turnout was about 40%, Iran's interior ministry said - the lowest on record since the 1979 revolution.
"We hope that people's turnout for the second round will be important and a source of pride for the Islamic Republic," Khamenei said, calling upon Iranians to cast their ballot this coming Friday.
Friday's vote will be a tight race between lawmaker Massoud Pezeshkian, the sole moderate in the original field of four candidates, and former Revolutionary Guards member Saeed Jalili.
The election is to elect a successor to President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May.
Khamenei added that the lower-than-expected turnout was due to "several factors" and that claims that non-voters were against the Islamic Republic were "strongly mistaken".
(Reporting by Dubai Newsroom, Elwely Elwelly; Editing by Michael Georgy and Alex Richardson)
