Iran has begun voting in a presidential election tipped in the favor of a hard-line protege of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Polls opened at 7 a.m. local time Friday for the vote.
Public apathy has been widespread after a panel under Khamenei barred hundreds of candidates, including reformists and those aligned with the outgoing president, the relatively moderate Hassan Rouhani.
State-linked opinion polling and analysts have put hard-line judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi as the dominant front-runner among the four candidates.
Former Central Bank chief Abdolnasser Hemmati is running as the moderate candidate but hasn’t inspired the same support as Rouhani.
