Tehran: Moderate presidential candidate, Hassan Rouhani, won the Iran's presidential election by securing over 50 percent of votes, Iran's interior minister said Saturday evening, reported Xinhua.
Rouhani won 18,613,329 votes out of counted votes of 36,704,156, said Mostafa Mohannad-Najjar, adding that the turnout rate in the Friday election was 72.2 percent.
He won the race with a wide lead, as his closest rival, Tehran's Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, only won 16.58 percent of the votes.
The Iranian president-elect competed with three conservative candidates and two independents, and came out victorious to most Iranians' surprise.
His closest rival, Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, garnered six million votes.
Al Jazeera's Soraya Lenni, reporting from Tehran, said that all Rouhani needed was 50 percent plus one vote in order to avoid a run-off.
"Everybody was predicting a very close race and that this would end in a run-off between Rouhani and Qalibaf," our correspondent said.
She said that everything had run quite smoothly on election day.
"There were long lines at polling stations, but everything was quite orderly," she added.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad still has about a month and a half of his presidency left and then Rouhani will be sworn in.
Iran ElectionsEarly vote count puts moderate Hassan Rouhani ahead in Iran poll
Iran's reformist-backed presidential candidate surged to a wide lead in early vote counting on Saturday, a top official said, suggesting a flurry of late support could have swayed a race that once appeared solidly in the hands of Tehran's ruling clerics. »
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