Iran votes for new president
Iranian nationals queue to vote in the first round of the Iranian presidential election yesterday in Baghdad's northern district of Kadhimiya. Photo: AFP
Millions of Iranians voted to choose a new president yesterday, urged by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to turn out in force to discredit suggestions by arch foe the United States that the election would be a sham.
The 50 million eligible voters had a choice between six candidates to replace incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but none is seen as challenging the Islamic Republic's 34-year-old system of clerical rule.
The first presidential poll since a disputed 2009 contest led to months of unrest is unlikely to change rocky ties between the West and the OPEC nation of 75 million, but it may bring a softening of the antagonistic style favoured by Ahmadinejad.
World powers in talks with Iran over its nuclear programme are looking for any signs of a recalibration of its negotiating stance after eight years of intransigence under Ahmadinejad.
Voting in the capital Tehran, Khamenei called on Iranians to vote in large numbers and derided Western misgivings about the credibility of the vote.
"I recently heard that someone at the US National Security Council said 'we do not accept this election in Iran'," he said.
"We don't give a damn," he added.
On May 24, US Secretary of State John Kerry questioned the credibility of the election, criticising the disqualification of candidates and accusing Tehran of disrupting Internet access.
All the remaining contenders except current chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili have criticised the conduct of diplomacy that has left Iran increasingly isolated and under painful economic sanctions.
Hossein, a 27-year-old voter in Tehran who belongs to the Basij hardline volunteer militia, said he would vote for Jalili, 47, Khamenei's national security adviser and a former Revolutionary Guard who lost a leg in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
"He is the only one I can trust to respect the values of the revolution ... He feels and cares for the needy," Hossein said.
In Dubai, Iranian expatriate Zahra, 20, a first time voter, said she cast her ballot for Khamenei's diplomatic adviser Ali Akbar Velayati because of his expertise on world affairs.
The Guardian Council, a state body that vets all candidates, barred several hopefuls, notably former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the Islamic Republic's founding fathers seen as sympathetic to reform, as well as Ahmadinejad's close ally Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie.
The Interior Ministry announced that voting, initially due to end at 1330 GMT, would be extended by several hours, Iran's Press TV reported in mid-afternoon. In the past, authorities have cited such extensions as evidence of a high turnout.
Iran's Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab neighbours are wary of Shia Iran's influence in Iraq and its backing for President Bashar al-Assad and his Lebanese allies Hezbollah in the Syrian war. The Sunni Arab kingdoms are backing the rebels in Syria.
Of five conservative candidates professing unwavering obedience to Khamenei, only three are thought to stand any chance of winning the vote, or making it through to a second round run-off in a week's time.
Nuclear negotiator Jalili, who advocates maintaining a robust, ideologically-driven foreign policy, is seen as the main conservative contender.
The other two, Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and former foreign minister Velayati, have pledged never to back away from pursuing Iran's nuclear programme but have strongly criticised Jalili's inflexible negotiating stance.
They face Rohani, the sole moderate and only cleric in the race. Though very much an establishment figure, suspicious of the West, Rohani is more likely to pursue a conciliatory foreign policy.
With no reliable opinion polls in Iran, it is hard to gauge the public mood, let alone the extent to which Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards exert their influence over the ballot.
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