Ahmadinejad allies fail to sweep Iran vote

Centrist cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani appeared to have sprung a surprise by reaping by far the most votes and beating a hardline rival in the election for the Assembly of Experts, the body that chooses the supreme leader.

In the keenly-watched race for Tehran city council, reformists were on course to take a handful of seats and end its total conservative domination of the body since the last local vote in February 2003.

However the authorities were keen to emphasise an unexpectedly high turnout, which appeared to have topped 60 percent for both votes, far higher than in similar elections in the past.

"The people have won. The enemies thought they had found a point of weakness but the Iranian people have shown their intelligence and grandeur to the entire world," Ahmadinejad declared.

However the results themselves were less palatable for Ahmadinejad's political allies, with the man seen as his spiritual mentor, Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, trailing behind Rafsanjani in the Assembly of Experts vote.

Although both men appear certain to have reaped enough votes to represent Tehran province on the Assembly for the next eight years, the results are a victory of vital symbolic importance for Rafsanjani.

Partial results announced by election officials showed Rafsanjani in first place with 1.3 million votes, almost half a million more than the second placed cleric, the current head of the body Ayatollah Ali Meshkini.