COUNTING is under way in Iran after the country’s presidential election yesterday — its first since its nuclear deal with world powers.

Hassan Rouhani, the 68-year-old incumbent, was facing a strong challenge from hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi, 56, in a poll that was largely seen as a referendum on his more moderate outlook and policies.

The deal — evidence of which has not been seen by the average Iranian — saw Iran limit its contested nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of some sanctions which had devastated its economy over several years.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the most powerful man in Iran, symbolically cast the election’s first vote and called on Iranians to turn out in huge numbers for the poll. He said: “Elections are very important and the fate of the country is in the hands of all people.”

Rouhani has history on his side — no incumbent president has failed to win re-election since 1981, when Khamenei himself became president.

The electoral race has raised emotions and pushed public discourse into areas typically untouched in the tightly controlled state media. That included Rouhani openly criticising hard-liners and Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force now involved in the war in Syria and the fight against Daesh in neighbouring Iraq. He also found himself surrounded by angry coal miners who beat and threw rocks at his armoured car during a visit to a northern mine struck by an explosion earlier this month that killed at least 42 people.

The campaign was also marked by opposition group members putting their lives at risk by draping large images of Maryam Rajavi — their leader in exile — from bridges and flyovers in cities across the country.

Activists from the main Iranian opposition, the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI/MEK), had run an extensive, nationwide campaign calling on Iranians to boycott the elections.

More than 56 million Iranians were eligible to vote at Iran’s 63,000 polling places, and authorities said they believed the voter turnout would exceed 70 per cent.