Iranians voted today in a disputed parliamentary election set to tighten hardliners' grip on power and end President Mohammad Khatami's faltering reform drive.
A short campaign was overshadowed by a ban on most reformist candidates and a crackdown on pro-reform media amid apparent public indifference. The main uncertainty concerns the turnout, with even the size of the electorate in dispute.
An Interior Ministry spokesman said voting had been extended by one hour to 7 p.m. (4.40 p.m. GMT) to allow people still queueing to cast their ballots. Voting hours are routinely extended in Iranian elections.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, among the first to cast his ballot, said the Islamic Republic's enemies were trying to deter young people from voting - an apparent reference to a boycott by blacklisted reformist lawmakers and student groups.
"You see how those who are against the Iranian nation and the Islamic revolution are trying so hard to prevent people from going to the polls," the Ayatollah told state television.
Conservatives seem certain to dominate the new assembly after the Guardian Council, an unelected panel of hardline clerics, disqualified 2,500 mainly reformist aspirants and a further 1,179 contenders withdrew.
A gloomy-looking President Khatami voted at the Interior Ministry. In an oblique criticism of an election he has branded "unfair", he told reporters: "This nation has been defeated many times but continued its path and created surprises."