Iran may see moderate shift

TEHRAN, May 23: Iranians urged to vote or answer to god, cast ballots for a new President on Friday in a showdown between hard-liners and m...

TEHRAN, May 23: Iranians urged to vote or answer to god, cast ballots for a new President on Friday in a showdown between hard-liners and moderates within the Islamic establishment.

The front runners were Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, who was backed by hard-line clergy, the military and merchants, and Mohammad Khatami, his more moderate opponent, who was popular with moderate clerics and youth.

Both candidates are clerics, but with distinct visions of the Islamic republic8217;s future. Their contest has generated an excitement in Iran greater than any time since the revolution that overthrew the US-backed Shah.

Polls opened nationwide at 8 am local time and state-run radio and television networks urged people to go to the ballot boxes. The outgoing President, Hashemi Rafsanjani, has said it is a religious and national duty to vote.

8220;Anyone who does not take part in the election and fails to vote, will be answerable to god and his own conscience,8221; rafsanjani said on Thursday, after campaigning closed.

Rafsanjani cast his ballot on Friday morning at the Jamaran mosque in northern Tehran.

By noon, hundreds of people were lined up at some polling stations and election workers had to replace filled ballot boxes.

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Hundreds of Khatami8217;s supporters mobbed the polling station at the Pasdaran district in northern Tehran where the candidate voted. Some supporters grabbed Khatami, a former culture minister, and kissed him on the cheeks.

Every Iranian over 15 or 33 million people of the 60 million population is eligible to vote for a successor to Rafsanjani, who must step down in August after two four-year terms.

In the cities, the opinion is almost unanimously behind Khatami, despite moves by hard-line clerics to swing the election in Nateq-Nouri8217;s favour. Soldiers said they had been instructed by their superiors to vote for Nateq-Nouri and the radio and television networks, ostensibly neutral, have campaigned for Nateq-Nouri.

Scores of Iranians who have never voted before said they would go to the polls to vote for Khatami, who is especially popular among the young. More than half of the country8217;s population is under 18 years old.

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Some Iranians say the conservative clergy will do everything possible to stop a victory by Khatami. Public suspicions of vote rigging were so widespread that the day before the polls opened Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran8217;s supreme leader, and Rafsanjani assured the nation the election would be fair.

No one is predicting a sea change in the Islamic republic, but Nateq-Nouri wants stricter enforcement of the social code. Women8217;s hair, for instance, would likely not be allowed to show beneath their veils.