nytimes.comTEHRAN — Iran’s state-run news agency declared Iran’s hard-line incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the winner of Iran’s tumultuous presidential election just two hours after the polls closed, but his main rival, Mir Hussein Moussavi, announced defiantly that he had won and charged that there had been voting “irregularities.”
“I am the absolute winner of the election by a very large margin,” Mr. Moussavi said, adding: “It is our duty to defend people’s votes. There is no turning back.”
The conflicting claims came as Iranian officials were counting ballots from a vote with so heavy a turnout that polls were kept open for several extra hours to accommodate the extraordinary crowds.
Mr. Moussavi, a moderate and former prime minister, said the voting irregularities included a shortage of ballots.
He accused the government of shutting down text messaging services throughout the country as well as Web sites that supported him, crippling the opposition’s ability to communicate during the voting. He also called on the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to help the country reach a “favorable conclusion.”
While casting his ballot earlier in the day, Ayatollah Khamenei had said that people were using texting to spread rumors, but it is unclear if that is why the services were shut down.
The ayatollah is the only person who could mediate between the two camps in the event of an open confrontation over the legitimacy of the vote. But it is not yet clear how much Mr. Khamenei knows about the situation or what role he might play.
Although IRNA, the state-run news agency, declared the president the winner, the country’s election commission was not as definitive. The commission said that, with 61 percent of the votes counted, Mr. Ahmadinejad had taken a strong lead, with 66 percent of the vote to Mr. Moussavi’s 31 percent, Reuters reported.
The election commission is part of the Interior Ministry, which is controlled by Mr. Ahmadinejad’s supporters.
The vote counting was likely to drag on through Saturday morning, if not later.
Amid the confusion overnight, a reformist web site called Fararu said Mr. Moussavi was talking with the two other candidates, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohsen Rezai, to discuss the situation. Mr. Karroubi is a reformist cleric and Mr. Rezai is a conservative and the former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Tens of millions of Iranians had crowded voting stations throughout the day to take part in what is widely seen here as a referendum on Mr. Ahmadinejad’s policies. Long lines had formed outside some polling stations well before they opened at 8 a.m.
Polls were originally due to close at 6 p.m. (9:30 a.m. in New York), but voting was extended by four hours.
The strong turnout appeared to be driven in part by a broad movement against Mr. Ahmadinejad that has spurred vast opposition rallies in Iran’s major cities over the past few weeks. Many reform-oriented voters stayed away from the polls in 2005, and have said they were determined not to repeat the mistake. Most said they supported Mr. Moussavi.
According to Iran’s election rules, if none of the candidates won more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two finishers will compete in a runoff in a week. Most analysts have assumed that the election would go to a second round, but in recent days, the extraordinary public support for Mr. Moussavi had led to predictions that he could win the presidency in the first round.
The four presidential contenders were the only aspirants remaining after Iran’s clerical elite weeded out the rest months ago.
Iran’s president is less powerful than Ayatollah Khamenei, who has final authority over affairs of state. But the president wields great power over domestic affairs, and Mr. Ahmadinejad has skillfully used the office as a bully pulpit both at home and abroad.
As voting began on Friday morning, journalists gathered to watch Ayatollah Khamenei cast his vote in a mosque near his home in southern Tehran. Just after 8 a.m., a set of brown curtains opened and the leader emerged, a gaunt 69-year-old with clunky glasses and a long white beard, with a black turban on his head and a black clerical gown draped around him. The journalists, mostly Iranians, gasped and then chanted a religious blessing.
Mr. Khamenei presented his identity papers to an official standing nearby, and cast two ballots: one for president, and one for the Assembly of Experts, the 86-member body of senior clerics that appoints — and can remove — the supreme leader. He then stepped to a microphone and gave a brief speech in which he praised the vigor of the election campaign.
“I am hearing about a vast participation of people, and I hear there are even gatherings at night,” Mr. Khamenei said. “This shows the people’s awareness.”
He said the text messages he objected to claimed
to represent his view on the election, and said they were lies spread by “unhealthy individuals with bad intentions.” Ayatollah Khamenei’s position on the presidential elections has been a matter of intense speculation. He has not endorsed anyone, but offered a description of the ideal candidate that sounded very much like Mr. Ahmadinejad.
However, Mr. Khamenei met for three hours on Thursday with Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a powerful cleric and former president who heads the Assembly of Experts. Mr. Rafsanjani opposes Mr. Ahmadinejad and has accused him of threatening the stability of the state.
Some analysts had said that Mr. Rafsanjani’s lobbying efforts could reduce Mr. Ahmadinejad’s freedom to bring out voters or even intimidate them using the levers of state — the military, the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij militia.
A number of voters interviewed at the polls Friday seemed anxious about the possibility of vote-tampering.
“I put one name in, but maybe it will change when it comes out of the box,” said Adel Shoghi, 29, who works as a clerk at a car manufacturing company and voted at a mosque in southern Tehran.
Like some other supporters of Mr. Moussavi, Mr. Shoghi seemed uneasy about making his position too explicit in public. But he said he favored Mr. Moussavi because Iran needed more civic freedoms and because Mr. Ahmadinejad worsened Iran’s pariah status internationally, making life hard for Iranians who travel.
His brother Mansoor, 27, standing next to Mr. Shoghi and smiling shyly, said he had just voted for Mr. Ahmadinejad.
“He is more with the people, and he has a plain way of living,” he said, echoing comments made by many supporters of the populist president.
Half an hour later, Mr. Moussavi arrived at the mosque to cast his vote, surrounded by a thick, shouting crowd of aides and photographers. He delivered a brief speech.
“This is a golden opportunity for us,” he said, as photographers jostled for position and voters struggled to hear. “All this unity and solidarity is the achievement of the revolution and the Islamic republic.”
He left soon after, with his admirers in the courtyard still chanting, “Hail to Muhammad, the perfume of honesty and sincerity is coming.”
Mr. Ahmadinejad voted at another mosque, in southeast Tehran.
There are families, like the Shoghis, that are divided over the candidates. But often the two main political camps seem almost to hail from different countries. Mr. Moussavi’s supporters tend to be wealthier, more educated and more socially liberal than Mr. Ahmadinejad’s.
Outside a polling station in an affluent area of north Tehran, women stood in line wearing colorful headscarves, designer jeans and sunglasses. It was a far cry from the mosque where Mr. Moussavi had voted.
“In the last elections, most people like us didn’t vote,” said Ava Bab, a 24-year-old dressed in an elegant gray headscarf. “But we saw our situation is getting worse, so we decided to put our hands together. The view other countries have of us is different from the way we really are.”Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
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