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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran Heads Toward Presidential Runoff

2005-06-18

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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran headed toward the first runoff presidential election in its history as a key government official predicted Saturday that none of the seven candidates - including the favorite contender Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani - would win enough votes for outright victory.

Turnout in Friday's vote appeared stronger than expected and polls stayed open an extra four hours, with voting booths even set up at Tehran's main cemetery for those paying weekly visits to family graves.

An Interior Ministry official involved in the counting told The Associated Press that a second round of voting would take place on June 24, the first time since the 1979 Iranian Revolution that a second round of voting has been required. He said the vote count he had seen makes it impossible for any one candidate to collect the required 50 plus 1 percent to win.

Some credited U.S. denunciations of the election for goading more Iranians to cast ballots after a Western-style campaign that has reshaped Iranian politics. A runoff would almost certainly include Rafsanjani, a political veteran and leader of the Islamic Revolution who now portrays himself as a steady hand for uneasy times.

With 90 percent of the votes tallied in his home province of Kerman in southern Iran, Rafsanjani took only 45 percent of the votes, Rasoul Moazemi, provincial election official told The Associated Press. Rafsanjani's son Mahdi, who has been working on the campaign, told The AP that he did not expect his father to get the 50 percent of the popular vote he would need to avoid a run-off on June 24.

Final results were expected Saturday.