Iran elections heading towards second round

Iran’s presidential elections seemed almost certain to require a second round as the favourite contender, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, appeared unlikely today to garner the 50% of votes required to avoid a run-off round.

With 90% of the votes counted in his home province of Kerman in southern Iran, Rafsanjani took only 45% of the votes, local election officials said.

His nearest contender was Ali Larijani, the former head of Iran’s state radio and television, and a close aide of to the Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

Even Rafsanjani’s son Mahdi, who has been working on the campaign, said he did not expect his father to get the 50% of the popular vote he would need to avoid a run off on June 24.

The elections yesterday gave a resounding rejection to a youth-led boycott - with lines of voters forced polling to continue four hours overtime – and revealed chinks in the conservatives’ armour.

The count is expected today but, unless one of the seven candidates gets 50% of the vote, there will be a run-off. Deputy Interior Minister Morteza Moballegh said a final result should be announced today at 8pm local time (4.30 Irish time).

There are 46.7 million eligible voters, millions of them living overseas. Votes from the heavier populated regions, like Tehran which has a population of 10.3 million, would be among the last to be tallied.

A pragmatist, Rafsanjani portrayed himself as a steady hand at the helm, able to navigate Iran through the treacherous days ahead, fraught with uncertainty over the nuclear programme, relations with the US, and neighbouring Iraq.

The big question would seem to be who would be the other run-off contender: Mostafa Moin, who represents the stumbling reform movement of outgoing President Mohammad Khatami, or one of the hard-line conservative candidates.