Counting is underway on Saturday in Iran’s Presidential election, with the official turnout said to be at about 70 per cent, poll officials said.

Millions of Iranians flocked to polling stations on Friday to vote in the election that pits incumbent President Hassan Rouhani, who is seeking a second term, against a strong conservative opposition.

Rouhani’s main challenger is Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline cleric and former prosecutor who is close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

According to the Interior Ministry, over 40 million votes were cast on Friday and voting time was extended by five hours due to “requests” and the “enthusiastic participation of people”, reports the BBC.

If no-one wins more than 50 per cent of votes cast, a run-off will be held next week.

Every incumbent President has been re-elected in Iran since 1985, when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself won a second term.

He cast his ballot just minutes after polls opened at 8 a.m.

Rouhani voted about an hour later.

More than 54 million people were eligible to vote in the presidential election.

Six candidates were approved by the Guardian Council, an influential clerical body controlled by conservatives, but two of them dropped out earlier this week, the BBC reported.

The first was Tehran’s hard-line mayor, Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf, who pledged his support for Raisi on Monday.

He was followed on Tuesday by Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri, a reformist, who pulled out to smooth the path for Rouhani.

The two other candidates still in the race are Mostafa Hashemitaba, a reformist, and Mostafa Mirsalim, an ultra-conservative figure.</s>Iran’s supreme leader ayatollah Ali Khamenei on 19 May preparing to vote for the presidential elections at a polling station in Tehran. Photo: AFP

Tehran (Iran): Iranians voted on Friday in the country’s first presidential election since its nuclear deal with world powers, as incumbent Hassan Rouhani faced a staunch challenge from a hard-line opponent over his outreach to the West.

The election is largely viewed as a referendum on the 68-year-old cleric’s more moderate policies, which paved the way for the nuclear accord despite opposition from hard-liners.

Economic issues also will be on the minds of Iran’s over 56 million eligible voters as they head to more than 63,000 polling places across the country. The average Iranian has yet to see the benefits of the deal, which saw Iran limit its contested nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of some sanctions.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the most powerful man in Iran, symbolically cast the election’s first vote and called on Iranians to turn out in huge numbers for the poll.

“Elections are very important and the fate of the country is in the hands of all people,” he said.

Associated Press journalists in Tehran, whose liberal and affluent voters form the bedrock of support for Rouhani, found lines at some precincts much longer than those seen in his 2013 win. Analysts have suggested a high turnout will aid Rouhani in securing a second four-year term.

“I am happy I could vote for Rouhani,” said Zohreh Amini, a 21-year-old woman studying painting at Tehran Azad University. “He kept the shadow of war far from our country.”

After casting his ballot, Rouhani said whomever the voters elect as president should receive all of the nation’s support.

“Any candidate who is elected should be helped to accomplish this heavy responsibility,” Rouhani said. “Anyone who is elected must be helped from tomorrow with unity, happiness and joy.”

Rouhani has history on his side in the election. No incumbent president has failed to win re-election since 1981, when Khamenei became president himself.

That doesn’t mean it will be easy, however. Rouhani faces three challengers, the strongest among them hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi, 56.

Raisi, a law professor and former prosecutor who heads an influential religious charitable foundation with vast business holdings, is seen by many as close to Khamenei. Raisi has even been discussed as a possible successor to him, though Khamenei has stopped short of endorsing anyone.

Raisi won the support of two major clerical bodies and promised to boost welfare payments to the poor. His populist posture, anti-corruption rhetoric and get-tough reputation — bolstered by his alleged role condemning inmates to death during Iran’s 1988 mass execution of thousands of political prisoners — are likely to energize conservative rural and working-class voters.

“Rouhani has turned our foreign policies into a mess and damaged our religion,” said Sedigheh Davoodabadi, a 59-year-old housewife in Iran’s holy city of Qom who voted for Raisi. “Rouhani gave everything to the US outright” in the nuclear deal.

After voting, Raisi told journalists that all should “completely surrender to the result of the election.”“If I, for instance, find the result undesirable, it should not lead to disruption of the election,” he said.

Mostafa Hashemitaba, a pro-reform figure who previously ran for president in 2001, and Mostafa Mirsalim, a former culture minister, also remain in the race.

Iranians overseas also will vote in over 300 locations, including 55 in the US, where more than 1 million Iranians live.

Hard-liners remain suspicious of America, decades after the 1953 US-engineered coup that toppled Iran’s prime minister and the 1979 US Embassy takeover and hostage crisis in Tehran. US President Donald Trump’s tougher stance on Iran has stoked concern as well, though his administration this week took a key step toward preserving the Obama-era nuclear deal.

Iran’s political system combines conservative clerical oversight and state control over large parts of the economy with tightly regulated but still hotly contested elections for key government posts. All candidates for elected office must be vetted, a process that excludes anyone calling for radical change, along with most reformists. No woman has been approved to run for president.

The president of the Islamic Republic oversees a vast state bureaucracy, is charged with naming Cabinet members and other officials to key posts, and plays a significant role in shaping both domestic and foreign policy. But he remains subordinate to the supreme leader, who is chosen by a clerical panel and has the ultimate say over all matters of state.

The race has heated emotions and pushed public discourse in Iran into areas typically untouched in the tightly controlled state media. That includes Rouhani openly criticizing hard-liners and Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force now involved in the war in Syria and the fight against Islamic State militants in neighbouring Iraq. Rouhani also found himself surrounded by angry coal miners who beat and threw rocks at his armoured SUV during a visit to a northern mine struck by an explosion earlier this month that killed at least 42 people.

But authorities worry about tempers rising too high, especially after the 2009 disputed re-election of former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that saw unrest, mass arrests and killings. Authorities barred Ahmadinejad from running in Friday’s election, and Khamenei days ago warned anyone fomenting unrest “will definitely be slapped in the face.”

That hasn’t stopped those at Rouhani rallies from shouting for the house-arrested leaders of the 2009’s Green Movement. Opposition websites have said Green Movement leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi both have endorsed Rouhani against Raisi. Rouhani promised in his 2013 campaign to free the men, but that pledge so far remains unfulfilled.

Mohammad Khatami, another reformist who served as Iran’s president from 1997 to 2005, also has endorsed Rouhani.

Supporters of the two leading candidates honked, blared music and held pictures of the hopefuls out of car windows on the traffic-clogged and heavily policed streets of Tehran late into the night Thursday, ignoring a ban on campaigning in the final 24 hours before the vote.

Voting is scheduled to run until 6 pm, though Iran routinely extends voting for several hours in elections. Iranian authorities say they believe the vote will exceed a 70% turnout.

Nasser Karimi in Tehran and Jon Gambrell in Dubai contributed to this report</s>President Hassan Rouhani was leading in Iran’s election with more than half of votes counted on Saturday, the head of the election committee announced.

Out of 25.9 million votes counted, Rouhani had 14.6 million and his hardline challenger Ebrahim Raisi 10.1 million, said Ali Asghar Ahmadi on state television.

A huge turnout on Friday — estimated at more than 40 million out of 56 million registered voters — led to the vote being extended by several hours to deal with long queues.

Rouhani, a 68-year-old moderate cleric who spearheaded a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, has framed the vote as a choice between greater civil liberties and “extremism”.

But he has faced stiff competition from hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi, 56, who positioned himself as a defender of the poor and called for a much tougher line with the West.

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Also, Like us on facebook</s>TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranians began voting Friday in the country’s first presidential election since its nuclear deal with world powers, as incumbent Hassan Rouhani faced a staunch challenge from a hard-line opponent over his outreach to the wider world.

The election is largely viewed as a referendum on the 68-year-old cleric’s more moderate policies, which paved the way for the nuclear accord despite opposition from hard-liners.

Economic issues also will be on the minds of Iran’s over 56 million eligible voters as they head to more than 63,000 polling places across the country. The average Iranian has yet to see the benefits of the deal, which saw Iran limit its contested nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of some sanctions.

In the election, Rouhani has history on his side. No incumbent president has failed to win re-election since 1981, when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the current supreme leader and most powerful man in Iran, became president himself.

That doesn’t mean it will be easy, however. Rouhani faces three challengers, the strongest among them hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi, 56.

Raisi, a law professor and former prosecutor who heads an influential religious charitable foundation with vast business holdings, is seen by many as close to Khamenei. Raisi has even been discussed as a possible successor to him, though Khamenei has stopped short of endorsing anyone.

Raisi won the support of two major clerical bodies and promised to boost welfare payments to the poor. His populist posture, anti-corruption rhetoric and get-tough reputation — bolstered by his alleged role condemning inmates to death during Iran’s 1988 mass execution of thousands of political prisoners — are likely to energize conservative rural and working-class voters.

Mostafa Hashemitaba, a pro-reform figure who previously ran for president in 2001, and Mostafa Mirsalim, a former culture minister, also remain in the race.

Voting is scheduled to run until 6 p.m., though Iranian authorities routinely extend voting for several hours in elections.

Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.</s>Tehran: Iran's state television declared incumbent President Hassan Rouhani the winner of the country's presidential election on Saturday, giving the 68-year-old cleric a second four-year term to see out his agenda calling for greater freedoms and outreach to the wider world.

State TV offered its congratulations in a brief statement Saturday, based on vote tallies. The latest election tallies released by the Interior Ministry showed Rouhani with a commanding lead of 59 percent, with 38.9 million votes counted.

Deputy Interior Minister Ali Asghar Ahmadi told journalists in a televised news conference earlier in the day that more than 40 million Iranians voted in Friday's election. That puts turnout above 70 percent.

In 2013, Rouhani won the presidential election with nearly 51 percent of the vote. Turnout for that vote was 73 percent.

As Rouhani appeared close to victory, some female drivers held out the V for victory sign and flashed their car lights on highways in Tehran's affluent north.

Iran's president is the second-most powerful figure within Iran's political system. He is subordinate to the supreme leader, who is chosen by a clerical panel and has the ultimate say over all matters of state.

Election officials repeatedly extended voting hours until midnight to accommodate long lines of voters, some of whom said they waited hours to cast their ballots. Analysts have said a higher turnout would likely benefit Rouhani.

Friday's vote was largely a referendum on Rouhani's more moderate political policies, which paved the way for the landmark 2015 nuclear deal that won Iran relief from some sanctions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.

Rouhani has come to embody more liberal and reform-minded Iranians' hopes for greater freedoms and openness at home, and better relations with the outside world.

His nearest challenger was hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi, with 15.5 million votes. He is close to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, who stopped short of endorsing anyone in the election.

Raisi ran a populist campaign, vowing to fight corruption and fix the economy while boosting welfare payments to the poor.

Many of Raisi's critics pointed to his alleged role condemning inmates to death during Iran's 1988 mass execution of thousands of political prisoners, and feared a victory for the hard-liner could worsen human rights in Iran and put the country on a more confrontational path with the West.

The two other candidates left in the race, Mostafa Mirsalim, a former culture minister, and Mostafa Hashemitaba, a pro-reform figure who previously ran for president in 2001, respectively have 455,000 and 210,000 votes each.

Hashemitaba was among the first to predict an outright win for Rouhani as he offered his congratulations Saturday morning.

"Rouhani will apply his ever-increasing efforts for the dignity of Iran" in his next term, the reformist said.

Although considered a moderate by Iranian standards, Rouhani was nonetheless the favorite pick for those seeking more liberal reforms in the conservative Islamic Republic.

He appeared to embrace a more reform-minded role during the campaign as he openly criticized hard-liners and Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force involved in the war in Syria and the fight against Islamic State militants in neighboring Iraq.

That gave hope to his supporters, who during recent campaign rallies called for the release of two reformist leaders of the 2009 Green Movement who remain under house arrest.

The two figures, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, both endorsed Raisi, as did Mohammad Khatami, another reformist who served as Iran's president from 1997 to 2005.

Iran has no credible political polling to serve as harder metrics for the street buzz around candidates, who need more than 50 percent of the vote to seal victory and avoid a runoff. But what scant data that was available before the vote showed Rouhani in the lead.

The position of president is a powerful post. He oversees a vast state bureaucracy employing more than 2 million people, is charged with naming Cabinet members and other officials to key posts, and plays a significant role in shaping both domestic and foreign policy.

All candidates for elected office must be vetted, a process that excludes anyone calling for radical change, along with most reformists. No woman has ever been approved to run for president.

Ahmadi said the Interior Ministry expects to announce final results later Saturday.</s>President Hassan Rouhani pledged on Saturday to open Iran to the world and deliver freedoms its people have yearned for, throwing down a defiant challenge to his hardline opponents after securing a decisive re-election for a second term.

Rouhani, long known as a cautious and mild-mannered establishment insider, reinvented himself as a bold champion of reform during the election campaign, which culminated on Friday in victory with more than 57 percent of the vote. His main challenger, hardline judge Ebrahim Raisi, received 38 percent.

In his first televised speech after the result, Rouhani appeared to openly defy conservative judges by praising the spiritual leader of the reform camp, former President Mohammad Khatami. A court has banned quoting or naming Khatami on air.

"Our nation's message in the election was clear: Iran's nation chose the path of interaction with the world, away from violence and extremism," Rouhani said.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, whose country has had no diplomatic relations with Iran since 1980, said he hoped Rouhani would use his second term to end Tehran's ballistic missile programme and what he called its network of terrorism.

Iran denies any involvement in terrorism and says its missile programme, which US President Donald Trump recently targeted with new sanctions, is purely for defence purposes.

Although the powers of the elected president are limited by those of unelected Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who outranks him, the scale of Rouhani's victory gives the pro-reform camp its strongest mandate in at least 12 years to seek the sort of change that hardliners have thwarted for decades.

Rouhani's opponent Raisi, a protege of Khamenei, had united the conservative faction and had been tipped as a potential successor to the 77-year-old supreme leader. His defeat leaves the conservatives without an obvious flag bearer.

The re-election is likely to safeguard the nuclear agreement Rouhani's government reached with global powers in 2015, under which most international sanctions have been lifted in return for Iran curbing its nuclear programme.

And it delivers a setback to the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), the powerful security force which controls a vast industrial empire in Iran. They had thrown their support behind Raisi to safeguard their interests.

Thousands of people gathered in central Tehran to celebrate Rouhani's victory. Videos on social media showed young people clapping and chanting "We love you Hassan Rouhani, we support you."

Some youngsters wore wristbands in violet, the colour of Rouhani's campaign. Others wore green, representing the reformist movement crushed by security forces after a 2009 election, whose leaders have been under house arrest since 2011.

During campaigning, Rouhani promised to seek their release if re-elected with a stronger mandate.

"We won. We've done what we should have for our country. Now it's Rouhani's turn to keep his promises," said coffee shop owner Arash Geranmayeh, 29, reached by telephone in Tehran.

Videos from the cities of Kermanshah, Tabriz and the holy city of Mashhad showed hundreds of people in the streets, cheering and dancing.

Rouhani, 68, faces the same limits on his power to transform Iran that prevented him from delivering social change in his first term, and that thwarted Khatami, who failed to deliver on a reform agenda as president from 1997-2005.

But by publicly thanking "my dear brother, Mohammad Khatami" in his victory speech, Rouhani seemed to take up that mantle. It was a remarkable challenge to the Shi'ite Muslim religious judicial authorities, who have blacklisted Khatami from public life for his support for other reformists under house arrest.

Many experts are sceptical that a president can change much in Iran, as long as the supreme leader has veto power over all policies and control over the security forces. Some said the pattern was all too familiar from Rouhani's first victory four years ago and Khatami's victories the previous decade.

"The last two decades of presidential elections have been short days of euphoria followed by long years of disillusionment," said Karim Sadjadpour, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment who focuses on Iran.

"Democracy in Iran is allowed to bloom only a few days every four years, while autocracy is evergreen."

The re-elected president will also have to navigate a tricky relationship with Washington, which appears at best ambivalent about the nuclear accord agreed by former US President Barack Obama. Trump has repeatedly described it as "one of the worst deals ever signed", although his administration re-authorised waivers from sanctions this week.

Trump arrived on Saturday in Saudi Arabia, his first stop on the first trip abroad of his presidency. The Saudis are Iran's biggest enemies in the region and are expected to push hard for Trump to turn his back on the nuclear deal.

Speaking at a joint news conference with his US counterpart in Riyadh, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Iran's presidential election was an internal matter. "We want to see deeds, not words" from Iran, he added.

Kuwait's emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, an ally of Saudi Arabia, congratulated Rouhani on his re-election.

Rouhani's reinvention as an ardent reformist on the campaign trail helped stir the passion of young, urban voters yearning for change. At times he broke rhetorical taboos, attacking the human rights record of the security forces and the judiciary.

During one rally he referred to hardliners as "those who cut out tongues and sewed mouths shut". In a debate last week he accused Raisi of seeking to "abuse religion for power". The language at the debate earned a rare public rebuke from Khamenei, who called it "unworthy".

The contentiousness of the campaign could make it more difficult for Rouhani to secure the consent of hardliners to carry out his agenda, said Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies programme at Stanford University.

"Rouhani upped the ante in the past 10 days in the rhetoric that he used. Clearly it's going to be difficult to back down on some of this stuff."

The Guards could also use their role as shock troops of Iran's interventions across the Middle East to try to derail future rapprochement with the West, said Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-born lecturer at Israel's Interdisciplinary Centre Herzliya.

"Since the 1979 revolution, whenever hardliners have lost a political battle, they have tried to settle scores," he said.

"I would worry about the more confrontational policy of the IRGC in the Persian Gulf ... and more confrontational policy with the US and Saudi Arabia."

Among the congratulatory messages sent to Rouhani by world leaders, Iran's battlefield ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad looked forward to cooperating "to strengthen the security and stability of both countries, the region and the world".

The biggest prize for Rouhani's supporters is the potential to set Iran's course for decades by influencing the choice of a successor to Khamenei, who has been in power since 1989.

A Raisi victory would have probably ensured that the next supreme leader was a hardliner. Rouhani's win gives reformists a chance to build clout in the body that chooses the leader, the Assembly of Experts, where neither reformists nor conservatives dominate.

Khamenei praised Iranians for their big turnout after voters queued up for hours to cast their ballots. The strong turnout of around 73 percent of eligible voters appeared to have favoured Rouhani, whose backers' main concern had been apathy among reformists disappointed with the slow pace of change.

Many voters said they came out to block the rise of Raisi, one of four judges who sentenced thousands of political prisoners to death in the 1980s, regarded by reformers as a symbol of the security state at its most fearsome.

"The wide mobilisation of the hardline groups and the real prospect of Raisi winning scared many people into coming out to vote," said Nasser, a 52-year-old journalist.

"We had a bet among friends, and I said Raisi would win and I think that encouraged a few of my friends who might not have voted to come out and vote."</s>As Iranian voters prepare to head to the polls Friday, there's one thing the high-stakes presidential election certainly will not decide: the country's commander in chief.

That post, at least, is already filled by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader for nearly three decades. As long as he maintains control over the highest seat in the land, Khamenei enjoys wide-ranging authority over the security forces and effective veto power over matters both diplomatic and domestic — including the council that vets and approves presidential candidates.

Still, the presidency offers significant power of its own. Whichever candidate emerges with the electoral victory will be handed a four-year term and the helm of an economy at a crossroads.

The approaching election presents a stark choice for Iranians: Re-elect the moderate incumbent, President Hassan Rouhani, or reject his relatively open-facing policies and turn to the conservative hard-liners hoping to replace him, such as his biggest challenger, Ibrahim Raisi.

Here is what's at stake in Iran on Friday — from the big names to the way they'll be selected — and what it means for the rest of the world.

Who are the candidates?

How will Iran decide?

What does this mean for the West?





Who are the candidates?

President Hassan Rouhani has been in power since 2013, when he surprised many observers with a commanding electoral victory. Described at the time as "the lone voice of moderation" among the candidates, Rouhani largely confirmed that reputation during his tenure — supporting freer Internet access and holding ground-breaking, regular face-to-face talks with the U.S. about Iran's nuclear program.

Those talks resulted in a landmark 2015 agreement that allowed inspectors into Iran's nuclear facilities and promised to limit its nuclear program to peaceful purposes. In return, Iran saw some of the sanctions it had been slapped with lifted. The deal has become the signature achievement of Rouhani's term in office and the centerpiece of his current presidential campaign — for better and for worse.

Yet the agreement has delivered mixed results for the Iranian economy. Although the country has attracted big international deals — such as a purchase of Boeing airplanes — the benefits have been slow to trickle down to average Iranians.

"A lot of middle-class people here are struggling to make ends meet," NPR's Steve Inskeep reports from the capital, Tehran. "And many of them are frustrated."

Rouhani blames hard-liners for trying to sabotage the agreement and its benefits, but many of those frustrated voters aren't convinced. They're turning instead to Rouhani's hard-line challengers, most notably Ebrahim Raisi.

A conservative cleric, Raisi hews closely to Khamenei's policy line — so much so, in fact, he's occasionally mentioned as the supreme leader's possible successor. Currently, he helms the charitable foundation for the Imam Reza shrine, one of the focal points of the Shiite world. But many of his detractors look to Raisi's past for perhaps his single most disqualifying factor: his alleged involvement in a committee that decided the fate of thousands of political prisoners who disappeared in the late 1980s.

"They executed more than 3,000 political prisoners," Iranian journalist Behdad Bordbar tells NPR's Peter Kenyon.

Members of that committee have never faced charges for their role in the presumed killings — but human rights activists aren't prepared to forget.

"A man who should be on trial for the most heinous crime in contemporary Iranian history, is instead seeking the presidency," said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran, said in a statement last month.

"Allowing him to run for president is yet another grievous wound for the families who unjustly lost their loved ones in 1988."

Yet Raisi's electoral position was buttressed this week, as one of his rivals — Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, another hard-liner — dropped out of the race and endorsed him. The pair, who accuse Rouhani of anemic economic progress and weakness in negotiations with the West, even campaigned together on Tuesday.

Rouhani, for his part, recently received the backing of another dropout, reformist candidate Eshaq Jahangiri.

Mostafa Hashemitaba, also a reformer, and conservative Mostafa Mirsalim round out the list of six presidential candidates approved by the Guardian Council, a 12-seat, appointed panel dominated by conservative, religious members. Hashemitaba and Mirsalim qualified for the group of finalists — beating out more than 1,600 others who put their names forward, according to NBC — but neither has appeared to approach the same level of popularity as the two main contenders. In fact, Hashemitaba has been openly calling for his supporters to vote for Rouhani, and Mirsalim has endorsed Raisi.

Then again, Iran's elections are often unpredictable (as the section directly below demonstrates), and unofficial polls reflect a race this year that's likely to be no different.



Voters head to the polls Friday, though if past elections are any indication, it's unlikely we'll know the results before Saturday.

Even then, those results might be less than decisive: By Iran's electoral rules, a candidate must earn more than 50 percent of the vote to seal a win in the first round. Otherwise, the top two candidates from the first vote will take part in a runoff one week later, set for May 26.

Iran's leaders are bullish about prospective turnout, with the country's interior minister predicting that more than 70 percent — or some 56.4 million people — will vote, according to The Associated Press. "Historically," the news service notes, "the more Iranians who cast ballots, the greater the chance a reformist or a moderate like Rouhani will be elected."

But Iranian elections are famous for their surprising results.

Not only did Rouhani's victory come as a shock to some, the 1997 election of reformer Mohammad Khatami defied many predictions, as well. But by 2005, voters had grown so dissatisfied with Khatami's perceived failure to deliver on his promises that they surprised observers again — electing a then-relative unknown in hard-line conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In 2009, even the final official results didn't spell an end to that year's election, which turned into a full-blown crisis and crackdown after Ahmadinejad won again. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians marched and protested, claiming the vote was rigged — but security forces eventually crushed the demonstrations, known as the Green Movement, with waves of arrests of protesters and prominent political figures.



What does this mean for the West?

With the Middle East in turmoil and traditional alliances in question, the decision Iranians make on Friday could have an impact well beyond their country's borders.

Iran's current theocracy, which was born in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, often backs militants around the Middle East — from the Lebanon-based Shiite group Hezbollah to Yemeni rebels. Its clerical leadership has threatened Israel's existence and demonized the U.S.

And Iran's supreme leader is well aware that his country's election has captured the world's attention.

"From the U.S. state apparatuses to European powers and regional countries aligned with America, to the pathetic prime minister of the Zionist regime, all are closely watching [the vote] and how and in what spirit" the Iranians will vote, Khamenei said in a televised speech Wednesday, according to the AP.

While Khamenei controls Iran's foreign policy, the president can help sculpt broader global opinion about the country's actions on the world stage.

That includes the U.S., where Iran-watchers — including members of Congress — are sharply split over how to deal with the country. Although Rouhani won the backing of the ayatollah on the deal to limit Iran's nuclear program, hard-liners in the U.S. tend to distrust Rouhani as the deceptively friendly face of a rogue nation.

Others have been won over by Rouhani's willingness to talk to the West, believing Iran might slowly become more moderate if the U.S. and European powers engage with the country economically.

For now, President Trump's administration has said it will continue to uphold its end of the nuclear bargain, announcing Wednesday that it would continue to waive some sanctions on Iran despite having referred to the deal on the campaign trail as the "worst deal ever."

Should Raisi win, however, hawks in the West are likely to increase their calls for tighter sanctions until Iran ends its support for militant groups and its longtime enmity toward Israel.

Ultimately though, the Trump administration and Congress appear eager to revise former President Barack Obama's policies toward Iran. That might spell U.S. tighter sanctions either way — in which case, the other signatories on the nuclear, which range from Russia to the U.K., would soon face a decision of their own: Follow the U.S., or continue to work with the man Iranians choose Friday.</s>Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has won re-election by a large margin, Iran's government-run television network said Saturday.

Rouhani led early vote counts with more than 22 million votes against his main challenger Ebrahim Raisi's 15.5 million, Reuters reports. Rouhani has been seen as a reformer in Iran's largely conservative society, and embraced modest efforts to reach out to the rest of the world in his first term.

Rohani appeared to have benefited from a large turnout that forced polls to stay open until midnight, NPR's Peter Kenyon reports. More than 40 million out of 56 million eligible voters cast their ballots, Iran's interior ministry said, as reported by The Guardian.

First elected in 2013, Rouhani is best known abroad as the president who made a nuclear deal with the West in 2015, in which the country agreed to certain limits on nuclear development in return for the lifting of some sanctions.

His conservative opponent Raisi attacked the weak state of the economy under Rouhani, and "lambasted Rouhani for seeking foreign investment and appealed to religious conservatives," The Guardian notes.

The lifting of sanctions did benefit the economy by increasing oil production. Iran is one of the top oil-producing countries in the world; the CIA ranked it at No. 7 in 2015. Rouhani had promised during the campaign to further undo international sanctions in a second term, Kenyon says.

But the economy is still sluggish. In mid-2016, unemployment stood at 12.7 percent, a "three-year high," according to the World Bank. NPR's Steve Inskeep reports that Rouhani "brought down inflation, but he slowed the economy while doing so."

Rouhani's reforms have been modest and gradual, as Inskeep notes. Reformist newspapers have begun publishing again and imprisoned journalists have been freed. Rouhani presided over an expansion of the country's 3G and 4G networks, used by smartphones.

But ultimate power in the country rests with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has held the title since 1989. Khamenei controls the country's security forces and can veto any presidential policies.

Meanwhile, U.S. President Trump arrived in Saudi Arabia Saturday morning, for a visit with the country's royal leaders. The Saudis are a strong U.S. ally and arch-enemy of Iran; the largely Sunni Saudis strongly opposed President Obama's outreach and nuclear deal with the Persian Shia power.

Despite President Trump's pledges to "rip up" the Iran deal, the Trump administration's State Department allowed the deal to continue this past week by continuing to waive sanctions on Iran.

Relations between the U.S. and Iran are likely to be remain hostile, according to Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He told NPR's Morning Edition that leaders in the U.S.-allied countries of Israel and Saudi Arabia are likely to advocate "a policy which goes back to status quo ante on Iran which is pushing Iran back in the Middle East."</s>As Iranian voters prepare to head to the polls Friday, there's one thing the high-stakes presidential election certainly will not decide: the country's commander in chief.

That post, at least, is already filled by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader for nearly three decades. As long as he maintains control over the highest seat in the land, Khamenei enjoys wide-ranging authority over the security forces and effective veto power over matters both diplomatic and domestic — including the council that vets and approves presidential candidates.

Still, the presidency offers significant power of its own. Whichever candidate emerges with the electoral victory will be handed a four-year term and the helm of an economy at a crossroads.

The approaching election presents a stark choice for Iranians: Re-elect the moderate incumbent, President Hassan Rouhani, or reject his relatively open-facing policies and turn to the conservative hard-liners hoping to replace him, such as his biggest challenger, Ibrahim Raisi.

Here is what's at stake in Iran on Friday — from the big names to the way they'll be selected — and what it means for the rest of the world.

Who are the candidates?

How will Iran decide?

What does this mean for the West?





Who are the candidates?

President Hassan Rouhani has been in power since 2013, when he surprised many observers with a commanding electoral victory. Described at the time as "the lone voice of moderation" among the candidates, Rouhani largely confirmed that reputation during his tenure — supporting freer Internet access and holding ground-breaking, regular face-to-face talks with the U.S. about Iran's nuclear program.

Those talks resulted in a landmark 2015 agreement that allowed inspectors into Iran's nuclear facilities and promised to limit its nuclear program to peaceful purposes. In return, Iran saw some of the sanctions it had been slapped with lifted. The deal has become the signature achievement of Rouhani's term in office and the centerpiece of his current presidential campaign — for better and for worse.

Yet the agreement has delivered mixed results for the Iranian economy. Although the country has attracted big international deals — such as a purchase of Boeing airplanes — the benefits have been slow to trickle down to average Iranians.

"A lot of middle-class people here are struggling to make ends meet," NPR's Steve Inskeep reports from the capital, Tehran. "And many of them are frustrated."

Rouhani blames hard-liners for trying to sabotage the agreement and its benefits, but many of those frustrated voters aren't convinced. They're turning instead to Rouhani's hard-line challengers, most notably Ebrahim Raisi.

A conservative cleric, Raisi hews closely to Khamenei's policy line — so much so, in fact, he's occasionally mentioned as the supreme leader's possible successor. Currently, he helms the charitable foundation for the Imam Reza shrine, one of the focal points of the Shiite world. But many of his detractors look to Raisi's past for perhaps his single most disqualifying factor: his alleged involvement in a committee that decided the fate of thousands of political prisoners who disappeared in the late 1980s.

"They executed more than 3,000 political prisoners," Iranian journalist Behdad Bordbar tells NPR's Peter Kenyon.

Members of that committee have never faced charges for their role in the presumed killings — but human rights activists aren't prepared to forget.

"A man who should be on trial for the most heinous crime in contemporary Iranian history, is instead seeking the presidency," said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran, said in a statement last month.

"Allowing him to run for president is yet another grievous wound for the families who unjustly lost their loved ones in 1988."

Yet Raisi's electoral position was buttressed this week, as one of his rivals — Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, another hard-liner — dropped out of the race and endorsed him. The pair, who accuse Rouhani of anemic economic progress and weakness in negotiations with the West, even campaigned together on Tuesday.

Rouhani, for his part, recently received the backing of another dropout, reformist candidate Eshaq Jahangiri.

Mostafa Hashemitaba, also a reformer, and conservative Mostafa Mirsalim round out the list of six presidential candidates approved by the Guardian Council, a 12-seat, appointed panel dominated by conservative, religious members. Hashemitaba and Mirsalim qualified for the group of finalists — beating out more than 1,600 others who put their names forward, according to NBC — but neither has appeared to approach the same level of popularity as the two main contenders. In fact, Hashemitaba has been openly calling for his supporters to vote for Rouhani, and Mirsalim has endorsed Raisi.

Then again, Iran's elections are often unpredictable (as the section directly below demonstrates), and unofficial polls reflect a race this year that's likely to be no different.



Voters head to the polls Friday, though if past elections are any indication, it's unlikely we'll know the results before Saturday.

Even then, those results might be less than decisive: By Iran's electoral rules, a candidate must earn more than 50 percent of the vote to seal a win in the first round. Otherwise, the top two candidates from the first vote will take part in a runoff one week later, set for May 26.

Iran's leaders are bullish about prospective turnout, with the country's interior minister predicting that more than 70 percent — or some 56.4 million people — will vote, according to The Associated Press. "Historically," the news service notes, "the more Iranians who cast ballots, the greater the chance a reformist or a moderate like Rouhani will be elected."

But Iranian elections are famous for their surprising results.

Not only did Rouhani's victory come as a shock to some, the 1997 election of reformer Mohammad Khatami defied many predictions, as well. But by 2005, voters had grown so dissatisfied with Khatami's perceived failure to deliver on his promises that they surprised observers again — electing a then-relative unknown in hard-line conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In 2009, even the final official results didn't spell an end to that year's election, which turned into a full-blown crisis and crackdown after Ahmadinejad won again. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians marched and protested, claiming the vote was rigged — but security forces eventually crushed the demonstrations, known as the Green Movement, with waves of arrests of protesters and prominent political figures.



What does this mean for the West?

With the Middle East in turmoil and traditional alliances in question, the decision Iranians make on Friday could have an impact well beyond their country's borders.

Iran's current theocracy, which was born in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, often backs militants around the Middle East — from the Lebanon-based Shiite group Hezbollah to Yemeni rebels. Its clerical leadership has threatened Israel's existence and demonized the U.S.

And Iran's supreme leader is well aware that his country's election has captured the world's attention.

"From the U.S. state apparatuses to European powers and regional countries aligned with America, to the pathetic prime minister of the Zionist regime, all are closely watching [the vote] and how and in what spirit" the Iranians will vote, Khamenei said in a televised speech Wednesday, according to the AP.

While Khamenei controls Iran's foreign policy, the president can help sculpt broader global opinion about the country's actions on the world stage.

That includes the U.S., where Iran-watchers — including members of Congress — are sharply split over how to deal with the country. Although Rouhani won the backing of the ayatollah on the deal to limit Iran's nuclear program, hard-liners in the U.S. tend to distrust Rouhani as the deceptively friendly face of a rogue nation.

Others have been won over by Rouhani's willingness to talk to the West, believing Iran might slowly become more moderate if the U.S. and European powers engage with the country economically.

For now, President Trump's administration has said it will continue to uphold its end of the nuclear bargain, announcing Wednesday that it would continue to waive some sanctions on Iran despite having referred to the deal on the campaign trail as the "worst deal ever."

Should Raisi win, however, hawks in the West are likely to increase their calls for tighter sanctions until Iran ends its support for militant groups and its longtime enmity toward Israel.

Ultimately though, the Trump administration and Congress appear eager to revise former President Barack Obama's policies toward Iran. That might spell U.S. tighter sanctions either way — in which case, the other signatories on the nuclear, which range from Russia to the U.K., would soon face a decision of their own: Follow the U.S., or continue to work with the man Iranians choose Friday.</s>With more than half of votes counted, incumbent president appears set to beat conservative challenger Ebrahim Raisi.

Iran's reformist President Hassan Rouhani appeared to have a strong lead on Saturday as results poured in from a crucial election that could significantly influence the country's future.

Rouhani had 14.6 million out of 25.9 million votes counted so far, Ali Asghar Ahmad, the head of the election committee, announced on state television. His closest rival, principlist Ebrahim Raisi, had 10.1 million votes.

Two other candidates, conservative Mostafa Mirsalim and reformist Mostafa Hashemitaba, were also in the ballot, though they are not expected to win more than a few percent of the vote.

READ MORE: Iran's 2017 elections - All you need to know

A big turnout on Friday, estimated at more than 40 million out of 56 million registered voters, led to the vote being extended by several hours to deal with long queues.

Final results are expected later on Saturday.

The election is seen by many as a verdict on Rouhani's policy of opening up Iran to the world and his efforts to rebuild its stagnant economy.

Rouhani swept into office four years ago on a promise to reduce Iran's international isolation.

Friday poll was the first since he negotiated a historic deal with world powers in 2015 to curb the country's nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

Political commentator Mostafa Khoshcheshm said that in contrast to the 2013 election campaign, when Rouhani spoke about the removal of sanctions and the improvement of the economy, this time around his message was different.

"He resorted to other campaign slogans, like [calling for] social and political freedom, and he pushed the boundaries in order to gather public support, especially in large cities," Khoshcheshm told Al Jazeera.

"If he has secured this result, it's because of the large cities and the middle class society living there - they have voted for him and made him a president and they expect him to do his promises."
Voters in Iran go to the polls to elect the President of Iran. Final opinion polls continue to predict that the incumbent Hassan Rouhani of the Moderation and Development Party will receive a majority of votes, with the conservative Combatant Clergy Association's Ebrahim Raisi as his main competition.