IN PIX: Iran votes to elect Ahmadinejad's successor

Iran on Friday began voting to elect its next president. The first round in the eleventh election for the president was held on Friday. If no candidate receives 50 percent of the vote in the first round, a runoff will be held on 21 June.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the incumbent president, did not run for re-election as he is limited to two terms under the current Iranian constitution.

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Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged people to vote en masse.

"Inshallah (God willing), the Iranian people will create a new political epic. I advise all people to vote and do so in the early hours of the morning," said the Iranian leader in a live broadcast on state television.

Iran's Guardian Council, consisting of six clerics and six lawyers, approved eight candidates to run in the election. Two of those candidates later dropped out of the race, CNN reported.

The six candidates contesting in Iran's presidential election include Saeed Jalili -- Iran's top nuclear negotiator since 2007 and considered a hardliner; Hasan Rowhani -- A former nuclear negotiator and close ally of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanja#8715 Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf -- Tehran mayor and former commander of the Revolutionary Guard during the Iran-Iraq war; Ali Akbar Velayati -- Top adviser to Supreme Leader Khamenei on international affairs; Mohsen Rezaei -- Former chief commander of the Revolutionary Guard; Mohammad Gharazi -- A former oil and telecommunications minister.

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Due to a late surge of support by the reformists, the moderate cleric Hassan Rowhani has emerged as a frontrunner with a real chance of forcing a run-off against the conservatives. Unofficial polls suggest that the conservative frontrunners are former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, AFP reported.  

Around 50.5 million people are eligible to vote at Friday's election.

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Members of an election commission work during the Iranian presidential election at the Iranian embassy in Minsk. Iranians voted for a new president on Friday urged by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to turn out in force to discredit suggestions by arch foe the United States that the election would be unfair.

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