Rouhani leads Iran presidential race, expected to win

Another presidential candidate Ebrahim Raeisi won over 10.1 million of the votes tallied, Ahmadi noted.

The official added that Mostafa Mirsalim and Mostafa Hashemi Taba had respectively won 297, 276 and 139,331 of the votes.

According to the Interior Ministry official, the number of votes tallied so far, stands at 25,966,729 votes out of which 25,182,310 are valid.

The pragmatist Rouhani won 21.6 million votes in Friday's hard-fought contest, compared to 14 million for Raisi, with 37 million votes counted, the source said, adding about four million more votes were still to be tallied.

More than 40 million ballots have been cast, Ahmadi said.

Voting started at 8am across the country in 63,500 polling stations and was supposed to end at 18pm but it was extended three times.

However, a large number of voters standing in long lines failed to cast their ballots in certain polling stations in Tehran including in three major stations in north and east of the capital.

Over 56 million Iranians were eligible to vote in Iran's 12th presidential elections, according to the Election Headquarters of the Interior Ministry.

For the presidential competition, the candidates were incumbent President Hassan Rouhani, the Custodian of Imam Reza (AS) Holy Shrine Ebrahim Raeisi and former Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mostafa Aqa Mirsalim and former Minister of Physical Education Mostafa Hashemi Taba.

If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the votes cast, the top two candidates will compete in a runoff election on May 26.

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