Rowhani represented Khamenei in the Supreme National Security Council, Iran’ top security body, where he also served as its secretary for 16 years until 2005.
In the run-up to the disputed re-election of Ahmadinejad in 2009, official election results were quickly released. But in this campaign, counting of the votes has proved to be time consuming.
Earlier, Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said in the early hours of Saturday his electoral staff would not “compromise accuracy for speed”.
Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, the spokesman for the Guardians Council electoral watchdog, said late Friday that “no violation” had been reported whatsoever across Iran.
Ahmadinejad’s re-election in 2009 sparked massive anti-regime street protests after his opponents and two reformist candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi alleged wide-scale voting fraud.
Those protests, stifled by a brutal regime crackdown, led to the eventual detention under house arrest of Mousavi and Karroubi, and a widespread suppression of reformists.
Rowhani’s surge in the campaign came after Khatami publically endorsed him, asking all his supporters to vote for the moderate candidate.
Khatami’s endorsement also gave birth to an online movement, with social networkers urging abstentionists not to waste their votes this time around.
“I will vote for Rowhani, even though I do not know him at all and did not want to vote until yesterday,” said a man named Ali on his Facebook page.
“I will vote because the consensus of those wanting to save Iran is on Rowhani.”
Other net surfers have adopted Rowhani’s official colour – purple – and his symbol of a key to open the door to solutions for Iran’s problems.
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