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Iranians vote to elect president

AFP, Muun
Iranians began voting yesterday for a new president after a fiery campaign which lias seen moderate ex-premier Mir Hossein Mousavi emerge as the main challenger to incumbent hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"Polling started nationwide at 8:00 am (0330GMT). It isonschedule. Itisgoingto last until 6:00 pm (1330 GMT),' the interior ministry, which is in charge of organising the election, said in a statement.
"We are expecting our dear citizens to come forward and vote in the early hours.”
Polls, however, may remain open until midnight depending on turnout among the 46-million-strong electorate. Results are expected within 24 hours after voting ends.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, one of the early ones to vote and who has the final say in the country's
strategic issues, urged people to remain “calm" and thwart any attempt to create "tension m pollingstations."
"Voting is a right and duty of the people. I urge people to arrive at the polling stations from early hours to vote and have their share in choosing the highest management of the country," he told reporters.
I he country's 10th presidential election since the 1979 revolution is a close two-horse race with passions running high after three weeks of mass rallies, stormy television debates and vicious mudslinging.
While Ahmadinejad, 52, is battling for a second four-year term in office, Mousavi, 67, is seeking to make a comeback after two decades in the political wilderness.
The election campaign turned a spotlight on deep differences within the Islamic republic after four years under Ahmadinejad. His hardline rhetoric on the nuclear standoff and against Israel has isolated the country from the West, and his expansionist economic policies have come under fire at home.
Ihe campaign also highlighted the glaring internal divide, with towns and villages passionately backing Ahmadinejad and young men and women in big cities throwing their weight behind Mousavi.
Analysts have been reluctant to forecast a winner, suggesting the vote may mirror 2005 when the relatively unknown Ahmadinejad scored a stunning upset in a second-round runoff against heavyweight cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
The 2009 campaign has been marked by street demonstrations and unprecedented public animosity among the candidates who traded insults and allegations of lying and corruption on1 prime-time television, ratcheting up the tension.