Iran's state media, including state television and radio, kept silent on Saturday morning about the result of the presidential election runoff vote on Friday.

As Early as around 01:30 Saturday morning (2100 GMT Friday), it was reported by some foreign media that Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had taken strong lead over his rival in the runoff, former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

The report came just two and a half hours after the voting ended after several extensions. Half an hour later, Iran's official IRNA news agency confirmed Ahmadinejad's lead, saying that the major of Tehran had won 2.194 million votes of the 3.596 million counted.

At about 5 o'clock local time, some officials of the Interior Ministry were quoted as saying that Ahmadinejad, a representative of Iran's new conservatives, had won the country's 9th presidential election.

However, Iran's state media all kept silent about the latest result, including the state television and radio, which often present the quickest report on issues concerning the country's official announcement.

IRNA also failed to update its reporting, and the latest one was just received at 03:30, which said that Ahmadinejad's win seemed irreversible.

Early risers in Tehran were fully in dark about the result. At the same time, many people were reluctant to believe Ahmadinejad's success because Rafsanjani, due to his pragmatist stance and comparatively open mind, had been front runner for months.

A taxi driver said, "Impossible! The television said just minutes ago that the result will be known until noon or afternoon. "

He said it was impossible to finish the counting of millions of votes in such a short time.

As late as 7 o'clock, state television and radio were telling people that Ahmadinejad was "taking apparent lead over Rafsanjani" and the announcement of election result would be made after noon.

Around 07:30, the TV subtitles said that the latest count result showed that Ahmadinejad had won 13,794,471 of the 22,152, 807 counted votes and Rafsanjani 7,829,173, which was the quickest report of the result after Ahmadinejad's win was revealed by foreign media.

Source: Xinhua