Veteran and powerful politician Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was defeated by his ultra-conservative presidential run-off rival Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran's ninth presidential election runoff.

The Interior Ministry announced here Saturday that Ahmadinejad has won a landslide victory according to the results of the counted votes from Friday's run-off and his victory is irreversible with a great margin.

Rafsanjani is trailing far behind with 35.9 percent, while Ahmadinejad won over 60 percent of the counted votes according to several partial results announced.

The decisive runoff in Iran's ninth presidential election ended late on Friday night. Some 46.8 million people were eligible to vote, with a 47 percent turnout, or around 22 millions of eligible voters.

When Rafsanjani finally entered the presidential election race after much public wringing of hands, he could never have anticipated his bid would end with a loss to the rival Ahmadinejad.

Many believed then that he was a racing certainty to win and a conspicuous lack of campaign appearances until the very last moment suggests that the regime veteran did too. However, he was finally defeated.

Rafsanjani was born in 1934 in the southeastern province of Kerman. In 1950's, he studied theology and then in 1960's followed Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, the founding father of the Islamic Republic, to react the ex-Shah's reign.

As a veteran revolutionary who was jailed for several times, Rafsanjani was appointed after the Islamic Revolution in 1979 as member of the Revolutionary Committee, Interior Minister and then Majlis (Parliament) Speaker.

Rafsanjani made great contribution to the ceasefire of the 1980- 1988 Iran-Iraq war as he persuaded Khomeini to accepted the UN Resolution 598, which advocated a truce between the two neighbors.

Soon after the death of Khomeini in 1989, Rafsanjani was elected as president of Iran with a landslide win and successfully reelected in 1993. During the two terms, he carried out some reform measures to build a comparatively open society and a somewhat active economy.

The 71-year-old powerful politician has been heading the Expediency Council, a powerful arbitration body of Iran, since he left the post of president in 1997.

Rafsanjani is widely viewed as a figure who favors improving ties with the West, especially the United States, and liberalizing the Islamic republic's stagnant economy.

"Iran is in a very special and sensitive situation, and any mistake may bring about a major catastrophe for the country," Rafsanjani said recently.

During the campaign, Rafsanjani put forward the slogan of " Economic Democracy", holding that economic growth and freedoms are prerequisites for social and political democracy.

In order to attract the youth, Rafsanjani also posed an unprecdentdly open stance by sitting among modern-looking university students and talking and listening to them.

However, the former president is lamed by the allegations that he is very wealthy and his family members and disciples are corrupted.

Observers said that having spent a quarter of a century at the nexus of Iran's theocracy, pragmatic cleric Rafsanjani faces an uncertain future after losing the Friday runoff.

Source: Xinhua