Former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and conservative Tehran mayor Mahmood Ahmadinejad will go to the runoff of Iran's ninth presidential election, the Interior Ministry announced late Saturday after finishing vote count.

According to the ministry statistics, Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad have garnered 6,159,453 and 5,710,354 eligible votes respectively, which account for 21 percent and 19 percent of the total eligible votes of 29,317,420, state television reported.

The final result was announced about 2 hours after some media reported Ahmadinejad's entrance while he himself also claimed so.

The dragging vote count in Tehran, where there are reportedly 1, 221,940 invalid votes, is to be blamed for the late result, but there is no explanation about the prolonged counting.

Former Majlis (parliament) Speaker Mehdi Karoubi stands at the third in the race with 5,066,316 votes, and he was surpassed by Ahmadinejad at the last minute after holding the second position with a slight dominance for almost a whole day.

Former police chief Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf has collected 4,075, 189 and Mostafa Moin, a radical reformist former Higher Education Minister, has gotten 4,054,304.

Former state broadcasting body chief Ali Larijani and Vice President Mohsen Mehralizadeh are at the end of the list, with 1, 740,163 and 1,289,323 votes in hand respectively.

Polling for Iran's presidential election ended on Friday at 11: 00 p.m. local time (1830 GMT).

The Interior Ministry said that some 32 million among 46.7 million eligible voters cast votes across the country.

The runoff will be held on next Friday, or June 24.

Rafsanjani, who served two terms as president from 1989 to 1997, is wellknown for his expertise in economic factor and political wisdoms as well as muscles to carry out realistically mild reforms, has therefore become a widely accepted figure to counter the difficulties confronting Iran.

As a veteran revolutionary who was jailed for several times during the Shah's reign, Rafsanjani was appointed as member of the Revolutionary Committee, the Interior Minister and the Majlis Speaker.

The 71-year-old powerful politician, currently heading the Expediency Council, is seen as a figure who favors improving ties with the West and liberalizing the Islamic republic's stagnant economy.

During the campaign, Rafsanjani put forward the slogan of " Economic Democracy", holding that economic growth and freedoms are prerequisites for social and political democracy.

It is widely purported that Rafsanjani is very wealthy and rumors also spread about the corruptions of his family members' and disciples, which he denied categorically.

Ahmadinejad, on the other hand, tells a quite different story.

Born into a blacksmith family, Ahmadinejad is supported mostly by the poor in the country and many citizens in Tehran, which he has governed for 2 years.

The 49-year mayor is a former special forces officer of the hardline Revolutionary Guards. It is also said that he used to work as a secret agent for a while during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, which he denied categorically.

Ahmadinejad's positive reputation came from his merits of improving the traffic condition and stabilizing prices in Tehran during his term.

However, he is viewed as a representative of the ultra- conservatives of the country and a close disciple of Supreme Leader Seyed Ali Khamenei, which has made him unpopular among less religious people in the country.

Source: Xinhua