Early Results Show Moderate Rouhani Leading Iran Elections

Based on the latest results with 25 percent of the total votes counted, Iranian officials on Saturday said moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani was leading the race in the presidential election.

Hassan Rouhani was leading the race with 5,003,633 votes followed by Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf with 1,582,724 votes and former head of the elite Revolutionary Guard Mohsen Rezaei in third place with 1,298,597 votes.

However, with just one fourth of the total votes counted, it was uncertain whether any single candidate would exceed the 50 percent threshold required to avoid a runoff next week.

Speaking to the press, Hassan Rouhani on Friday had expressed his desire to re-engage with the West and also had assured that he would free political prisoners.With all six candidates seen as conservatives, analysts say the moderate cleric was seen reaching out to reformists recently.

With around 50 million Iranians qualified to vote to elect a successor to the outgoing leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, voting hours were extended by five hours in parts of Tehran and four hours in the rest of the country on Friday.

While disclosing the information that Rouhani was leading the race so far, Iran's Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar on Saturday didn't say when the final results would be available, according to the reports.

As polls closed, representatives of all six candidates issued a joint statement urging their supporters to remain calm until the official results were known."We ask people not to pay attention to rumors of victory parades being organised and to avoid gathering before the official results," the statement said.

Previously, Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar told the state TV that any presidential candidates unhappy with the results would have three days to lodge complaints to the vetting body, the Guardian Council.

After the last presidential election in 2009, millions of Iranians came out into the streets, demanding a re-election, when the supreme leader dismissed claims by the three defeated contestants of widespread fraud.

Two of them, former Prime Minister Mir Hussein Mousavi and senior cleric Mehdi Karroubi later became leaders of a nationwide opposition, widely known as the Green Movement in the country.

When these two leaders wanted to hold a protest in support of the anti-government movements, which were then sweeping throughout the Arabic countries, they were put under house arrest in February 2011 and are still confined.

This year, no foreign observers have been allowed to monitor the presidential election and media in the country is also under restrictions.

Many reformist newspapers in the country have been closed down and Internet was reported to be slow and banned in some areas.

Many of the foreign broadcasters have been restricted and journalists have been detained, according to the BBC.

Real Time Analytics