{{Moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani has taken a commanding lead in Iran’s presidential election based on the latest results, with about 25% of the total votes counted, according to the interior ministry .}}
Rouhani, a former nuclear negotiator, leads with 5,003,633 votes, 50.8 percent of counted votes.
He is followed by Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf with 1,582,724, 16.1 percent of the votes.
Mohsen Rezaei, a former head of the elite Revolutionary Guard, is now in third place with 1,298,597 votes racing past Saeed Jalili, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, who has 1,229,151 votes.
Trailing the field were former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati with 620,908 votes, and little-known former minister Mohammad Gharazi with 124,129 votes.
Earlier, Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar told state television on Saturday that his electoral staff would not “compromise accuracy for speed”.
Iran’s state-owned news network Press TV said that voter turnout in the presidential election has been around 80%. That is about 40 million votes out of a possible maximum of 50 million.
Polling stations stayed open for up to five hours later than planned as millions of Iranians turned out to cast their votes.
An announcement of initial results by the Interior Ministry, scheduled for around 1:30am local time, was then postponed by several hours.
{Aljazeera}
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