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Iran's interior minister said President Hassan Rohani -- seen casting his ballot on May 19 -- won reelection with around 57 percent of the vote, easily avoiding a runoff.
Iran's interior minister said President Hassan Rohani -- seen casting his ballot on May 19 -- won reelection with around 57 percent of the vote, easily avoiding a runoff.

Live Blog: Rohani Declared Winner Of Iran Vote

Updated

-- Iranian officials have declared President Hassan Rohani winner of the May 19 vote with around 57 percent of ballots, easily avoiding a runoff against conservative former prosecutor Ebrahim Raisi, who was said to have received about 38.5 percent of votes cast.

-- In a victory speech, Rohani said the Iranian people were the "real victors" of the election and that Iran had chosen "engagement with the world" in voting for him, rejecting extremism. But as Rohani knows very well, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei holds ultimate political, military, and religious power in Iran, and can easily derail a campaign or thwart the plans of a president.

-- Six men were approved to run by the Guardians Council from more than 1,600 applicants, but it quickly boiled down to a two-man race between Raisi and Rohani, an establishment veteran who oversaw a breakthrough nuclear deal with world powers to ease sanctions and pushed for engagement with the West and greater openness for Iranians.

-- Raisi has long been talked about as a possible successor to Khamenei, and it's unclear what effect a landslide loss might have on his political ambitions.

*NOTE: Times are stated according to local time in Tehran (GMT +4 1/2)

19:47 19.5.2017

A tweet from the chief editor of the website of state-owned Press TV:

20:38 19.5.2017

With the polls closed, we are also now closing the live blog for today, but we'll be back again tomorrow morning to follow all the latest developments.

05:16 20.5.2017

Good morning. The first results are in:

Iranian President Hassan Rohani leads the field of candidates in Iran's presidential election in the first official results released on May 20.

With over 25 million counted so far, Rohani was in the lead with over 14.6 million votes, compared with 10 million for his chief hard-line rival Ebrahim Raisi. The other two candidates did not break through the 1 million mark.

05:16 20.5.2017

05:18 20.5.2017

Final results expected by the afternoon, according to this tweet.

05:24 20.5.2017

According to the Interior Ministry's first official count, translated by Radio Farda.

From the 25,966,729 votes counted, there were 25,182,310 valid votes. This brings the preliminary result to:

14,619,848 Hassan Rohani

10,125,855 Ebrahim Raisi

297,276 Mostafa Mirsalim

139,331 Mostafa Hashemi Taba

Total votes are around 42 million, the final result to be announced Saturday afternoon (around 2 p.m. local time).

05:24 20.5.2017

06:07 20.5.2017

Election chief Ali Asghar Ahmadi announcing the preliminary results on state channel IRIB:

06:17 20.5.2017

Votes being counted in the U.S. Reports appeared to suggest that many Iranians voted outside the country.

06:19 20.5.2017

It's still very early, and final figures could eventually vary significantly from what we're seeing now, but some folks are already turning their attention to the true prize on the Iranian political scene, the supreme leader's post. That person, currently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is 77 and said to be in flagging health, and Raisi has been whispered to be a contender to succeed him in the future.

So what would a trouncing in this election mean for Raisi's potential bid to become supreme leader?

Here's one answer:

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