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Moderate in Iranian Election Takes Strong Lead in Early Returns Iranian Moderate Elected President in Rebuke to Conservatives
(34 minutes later)
TEHRAN — Iranian officials spent Saturday tallying votes in the nation’s presidential election, with a surge of interest apparently swinging the tide in the favor of the most moderate candidate. With a fraction of the vote counted, the moderate, Hassan Rowhani, was holding a strong lead, but it was uncertain whether he would exceed the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff next week. TEHRAN — In a striking repudiation of the ultraconservatives who wield power in Iran, voters on Saturday overwhelmingly elected a mild-mannered cleric seeking greater personal freedoms and a more conciliatory approach to the world.
With long lines at the polls on Friday, voting hours were extended by five hours in parts of Tehran and four hours in the rest of the country. Turnout reached 75 percent, by official count, as disaffected members of the Green Movement, which was crushed in the uprising that followed the disputed 2009 presidential election, dropped a threatened boycott and appeared to coalesce behind Mr. Rowhani, a cleric, and the mayor of Tehran, Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf. Iranian state television reported that the cleric, Hassan Rowhani, 64, had more than 50 percent of the vote, enough to avoid a runoff in the race to replace the departing president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose tenure was defined largely by provocation with the West and a seriously hobbled economy at home.
By late afternoon on Saturday, the preliminary results showed Mr. Rowhani with slightly more than half the votes, followed by Mr. Ghalibaf, who was trailing far behind. Iran’s interior minister, Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, did not say when the final results would be available. Iran has more than 50 million eligible voters and as of midday Saturday nearly 16 million votes had been counted. The hard-line conservatives aligned with the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, placed at the back of the pack of six candidates, indicating that Iranians were looking to their next president to change the tone, if not the direction of the nation, by choosing a cleric who served as the lead nuclear negotiator under an earlier reformist president, Mohammad Khatami.
Tehran appeared to be deserted, despite the fact that Saturday is the first day of the week there, as people stayed home to watch the election results unfold. During the Khatami era, Iran froze its nuclear program, eased social restrictions and promoted dialogue with the West. But this election, which electrified a nation that had lost faith in its electoral process, also served the supreme leader’s goal, instilling at least a patina of legitimacy back into the theocratic state, providing a safety valve for a public distressed by years of economic malaise and isolation, and returning a cleric to the presidency. Mr. Ahmadinejad was the first noncleric to hold the presidency, and often clashed with the religious order and its traditionalist allies.
The early results seemed to repudiate the coalition of conservative clerics and Revolutionary Guard commanders, the so-called traditionalists, who consolidated power after the 2009 election, which the opposition said was rigged. The traditionalists’ favored candidate, Saeed Jalili, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator and a protégé of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, did not seem to have gained much traction with the public, emphasizing vague concepts like “Islamic society” and standing up to Western pressure. Mr. Rowhani has also been a strong supporter of the nuclear program, and while he is expected to tone down the tough language, he also once boasted that during the period Iran had suspended enrichment, it made its greatest nuclear advances because the pressure was off.
Interior Ministry officials who had access to the preliminary tallies said that Mr. Rowhani appeared to be the clear winner in some cities. Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, the spokesman for the Guardian Council, warned against publishing any rumored results until the official results were in. In the Iranian system, the supreme leader holds ultimate power, presiding over the state with ultimate religious and civic authority. He has final say on all matters, but still needs to build consensus within the narrow world of Iran’s political, security and business elite. The president has some control over the economy — the public’s primary concern — and through the bully pulpit of the office he can set the tone of public debate on a wide variety of issues, including the restrictions on young people socializing and the nuclear program.
Mr. Rowhani even managed to do well in the city of Qom, the center of Iranian theological scholarship, the early results showed, suggesting that the desire for a more responsive government extends throughout society. The election results put the supreme leader under pressure to allow changes in the country to take place, or allow him to make the kind of changes that might be opposed by hard-liners if they controlled all the levers of power.
Ayatollah Khamenei praised the voting in a Twitter post on Saturday despite the fact that the traditionalists’ favored candidate appeared far behind. The ayatollah himself had exhorted Iranians to exercise their right to vote. Analysts are predicting at least some change. “There will be moderation in domestic and foreign policy under Mr. Rowhani,” said Saeed Laylaz, an economist and columnist close to the reformist current of thinking.
“A vote for any of these candidates is a vote for the Islamic Republic and a vote of confidence in the system,” he said. “First we need to form a centrist and moderate government, reconcile domestic disputes, then he can make changes in our foreign policy,” said Mr. Laylaz, who, in a sign of confidence, agreed to be quoted by name
Many veteran Iran political watchers, who had expected a conservative winner in what had been a carefully vetted and controlled campaign, expressed surprise at the early results. Using a key as his campaign symbol, Mr. Rowhani focused on issues important to the young, including unemployment and international isolation.
“If the reports are true, it tells me that there was a hidden but huge reservoir of reformist energy in Iran that broke loose in a true political wave,” said Cliff Kupchan, an Iran analyst for the Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting firm in Washington. “It was unpredictable — not even tip of the iceberg visible two days or three days ago — but it seems to have happened.” “Let’s end extremism,” Mr. Rowhani said during a campaign speech. “We have no other option than moderation.”
Farideh Farhi, an Iran scholar at the University of Hawaii, while careful not to draw conclusions until the official result was known, said it was clear that reformers and other disaffected voters in Iran had mobilized a heavy turnout despite doubts about the system. He criticized the much-hated morality police officers who arrest women for not having proper head scarves and coats. He called for the lifting of restrictions on the Internet. He said that “in consensus with higher officials” political prisoners would be freed.
“Everyone’s assumption was they would not be able to create a wave of voters in the society,” Ms. Farhi said. “This outcome was not something planned by Ayatollah Khamenei.” At the time his campaign words sounded like empty promises to many potential voters, who pointed out that Mr. Rowhani did not enjoy the support of those in power.
In surveys and interviews throughout the campaign, Iranians have consistently listed the economy, individual rights and the normalization of relations with the rest of the world as their top priorities. They also said they saw the vote as a way to send a message about their displeasure with the direction of Iran, which has been hobbled by economic mismanagement and tough Western sanctions, stemming from the government’s refusal to stop enriching uranium. But support from two former presidents, Mr. Khatami and Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, himself disqualified from participating, lifted Mr. Rowhani’s status, helping him to tap into the votes of millions of dissatisfied Iranians.
Mr. Rowhani, a former nuclear negotiator, had been criticized by Mr. Jalili as being too willing to bargain away Iran’s nuclear program, which the West says is a cover for developing nuclear weapons but Tehran says is for peaceful purposes. His appeal to the younger generation was crucial in a nation where there is an increasing divide between the millions of youths — two thirds of the 70 million population are under 35 — and the ruling hard-liners who use morality police, Internet blocking and other harsh measures to try to mold those born after the revolution.
But Mr. Rowhani seemed to strike a more popular chord by promoting more freedoms and rights for women, and gained momentum late in the campaign with the withdrawal of the only other candidate with any reformist tendencies and the endorsement of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, 78, a moderate former president who was disqualified by the Guardian Council, which vets all presidential candidates. Many Iranians were disillusioned with their system after the 2009 election, when millions took to the streets because they felt the election had been rigged to allow Mr. Ahmadinejad to return to office. The government dispatched security forces to silence the opposition and placed the leadership of the so-called Green Movement under house arrest for years.
While not claiming victory, Mr. Rowhani’s campaign released a statement on Saturday urging the authorities to conduct a clean count. “We hope that the respected Guardian Council and the election headquarters of the country will follow the guidelines of the supreme leader regarding protecting the peoples’ rights in counting the votes,” it read. But within the circumscribed world of Iranian politics the public looked to the vote as a chance to push back.
Mr. Rowhani’s closest competitor in the early results, Mr. Ghalibaf, is also considered a moderate and a strong manager who has improved the quality of life in Tehran in his eight years as mayor. The other four candidates, all conservatives, seemed to be trailing badly. When Fatemeh, 58, took a seat in the women’s compartment of the Tehran subway on Saturday, she did what she always did, discreetly listening to those around her.
Mr. Jalili, known for his unyielding stance as a nuclear negotiator, had been considered a front-runner less than three weeks ago. But his campaign never gained much momentum, and in his public statements and appearances he appeared to have little knowledge of Iran’s economic problems, one of the biggest concerns here. Now, to her surprise, Mr. Rowhani, had won.
In the Iranian political system, the president appoints governors, some members of the cabinet and other officials, and has some say in economic policy. But all power ultimately resides with the supreme leader, particularly in foreign policy and the nuclear program. “They were all shocked, like me,” she said. “It is unbelievable, have the people really won?”
But as the departing incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, made clear with his bombastic appearances at the United Nations and his express desire to see Israel “wiped off the map,” the president can have a profound effect in setting the tone in Iran. Analysts said they expected the election of either Mr. Rowhani or Mr. Ghalibaf might soften Tehran’s confrontational tone, if not its actual stance in negotiations. Feeling defeated by pessimism and expecting Iran could only change for the worse, many awoke on Saturday anticipating that the conservative clerics and Revolutionary Guard Corps members who have been amassing power over the past years would alter the outcome of the vote in their favor.
As the counting continued into Saturday, officials issued an edict that all candidates to avoid any gatherings until the official result was announced. The order was a reminder of the political minefield presented by the election, which descended into protest and chaos four years ago when pro-reformist candidates accused the authorities of rigging the vote to ensure Mr. Ahmadinejad’s re-election. He was not eligible for a third term. Instead state television, which is under their control, meticulously broadcast the results that came in more slowly than usual, and all showed a clear lead for Mr. Rowhani.
Wary of stirring those passions, the authorities banned street rallies and limited the candidates to smaller meetings in enclosed spaces like theaters and gymnasiums. After casting his ballot, Ayatollah Khamenei went out of his way to reassure Iranians that the vote would be free and fair. “I thought they would trick us, engineer a runoff with another candidate and make Rowhani lose,” said Reyhan, 30, a poet.
“I have advice for the people in charge of ballot boxes and counting the votes,” he said. “They need to know that they are the trustee of the people and their vote needs to be preserved, and this is the people’s right.” Random interviews with many Iranians who voted on Friday suggested they had felt conflicted about casting any vote among the carefully vetted field of six candidates. But they said at least Mr. Rowhani represented a distinct change from the combative bombast of Mr. Ahmadinejad, who presided over a painful economic decline and the country’s troubling ostracism.
The top election official in Tehran Province, which includes the capital and is the country’s largest urban area, said at least 70 percent of voters had cast ballots by the end of Friday. “The political epic that the leader expected took place,” the official, Safar Ali Baratloo, was quoted as saying by the Iranian Students’ News Agency. “We need to end these eight years of horror,” said Mehdi, 29, while leaving a polling station in Narmak, the neighborhood where Mr. Ahmadinejad had lived before he was elected in 2005. “I thought of not voting, but we cannot stand aside.
Mr. Rowhani was drawing a number of votes in Geysha, a middle-class Tehran neighborhood. “He will change this country,” said Golnaz, 20, who refused to give her family name for security reasons. “We need change.” “Either Rowhani wins, or we leave the country,” he said as his wife nodded. On Saturday Mr. Khatami, a prominent reformist politician, wrote an open letter to the ayatollah seeking relief for the leaders of the opposition movement, the former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, and cleric Mehdi Kerroubi, the opposition Web site Kalame reported. They have been under house arrest for years.
But there were some doubts about just how much would change even with a more moderate president. Addressing American skepticism about the outcome as he exhorted Iranians to vote, Ayatollah Khamenei told reporters: “To hell with you if you do not believe in our election. If the Iranian nation had to wait for you to see what you believe in and what you do not, then the Iranian nation would have lagged behind.” “This is a request by millions of reformists who played a crucial role in fulfilling the Leader’s wish and now they request the Leader to respond positively to their demand and fill their hearts with joy," Mr. Khatami wrote in an open letter titled "today is the day of mercy".

Rick Gladstone and Robert Mackey contributed reporting from New York.

For the West, Mr. Rowhani’s election means a possible new opportunity for at least a change in tone in the long stalled nuclear talks.
In a way, the elections were a referendum on the tactics of the talks. Mr. Rowhani was Iran’s nuclear negotiator in 2004, when Iran agreed to voluntary suspension of uranium enrichment. That suspension was reversed under Mr. Ahmadinejad’s tenure and the replacement of Mr. Rowhani with Mr. Jalili, the current negotiator, who ran his presidential campaign promising “No compromise.”Mr. Rowhani faced scathing attacks by Mr. Jalili, who suggested Mr. Rowhani had betrayed the country. In an important pre-election speech Ayatollah Khamenei also implicitly warned Mr. Rowhani that it was “wrong” to think that there could be any compromise with western nations.
On Saturday a member of parliament, Sharif Husseini, warned that “nothing would change” in Iran’s nuclear policies regardless of the presidential election outcome. ”All these policies have been decided by the supreme leader,” he was quoted as saying by the Iranian Students’ News Agency.
But some Iranian experts in the West were not so sure.
“While the Supreme Leader firmly controls that file, tone matters,” said Cliff Kupchan, who follows Iran for the Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting firm in Washington. “If the U.S. and Iran get into a room this fall and our side doesn’t have to listen to a 60-minute harangue, the dynamics could be different.”
Gary G. Sick, a Columbia University academic who specializes in Iran and served on the National Security Council during the Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations, also foresaw a possible shift.
“The reality is the Supreme Leader maybe the guy who calls all the shots, but he changes his mind, he has permitted all kinds of things to be tried,” Mr. Sick said.
Putting himself in the position of the American nuclear negotiating team with Iran, Mr. Sick, said: “What would I prefer? Would I really rather have Jalili, or Rowhani?”

Rick Gladstone contributed reporting from New York.