Tehran Mayor Ahmadinejad wins Iran's 9th presidential election

Iran's ultra-conservative Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has won the country's 9th presidential election, the Interior Ministry announced here Saturday.

Ahmadinejad has won a landslide victory according to the results of the counted votes from Friday's run-off and his victory is irreversible with a great margin, said spokesman of the Ministry of Interior Jahanbakhsh Khanjani.

Ahmadinejad has been taking a strong lead over his moderate presidential run-off rival Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in the vote count, winning over 60 percent of the counted votes according to several partial results announced.

The mayor entered the runoff with 5,710,354 votes garnered from the first round of voting on June 17, which accounted for 19 percent of the total eligible votes.

In the first round, his rival Rafsanjani collected 21 percent of the votes, standing ahead of him.

Ahmadinejad: representative of the ultra-conservatives

Ahmadinejad was born into a blacksmith family in 1956 in the southeastern countryside of Tehran. At 19, he began his study at Tehran Industry Technology University.

After graduation, he further went back to the university brush up his diploma for two inconsecutive times and was finally entitled with PhD of transportation engineering in 1997.

He started his political career as a consultant of the mayor of the southwestern city Shahr Kord after leaving university in late 1970's.

During the 1980-1988 war with Iraq, Ahmadinejad spent several years in the armed forces. It is said that he used to work as a secret agent during this period of time, which he denied categorically.

Afterwards, Ahmadinejad was appointed to be mayor of the northwestern city of Maku bordering Turkey.

In late 1990's, he became governor of the northwestern province of Ardabil, a post that brought him the annual honor of "Model Governor" for three consecutive times.

Then, he was appointed to be chief of the special forces of the hardline Revolutionary Guards.Ahmadinejad was elected as Tehran mayor in 2003, and his positive reputation came from the merits of improving the traffic condition and stabilizing prices in the sprawling and polluted capital city.

Due to his family background, Ahmadinejad always leads a simple life. It is said that he often takes home-made lunch to office and lives in an ordinary flat.

Therefore, Ahmadinejad is also enthusiastically supported by people of lower social status in the country.

Hardline religious Iranians, on the other hand, prefer him due to his conservative politics.Ahmadinejad has said that he is against any compromise on the issue of Iran's nuclear program and relations with the United States.

Domestically, the Tehran mayor has been making all efforts to restore the fundamentalist Islamic laws to the country, which has made him very unpopular among less religious people in the country.

Ahmadinejad has been viewed as a representative of the ultra-conservatives of the country and a close disciple of Supreme Leader Seyed Ali Khamenei.

Source: Xinhua