Voting of Iran's ninth presidential election kicked off Friday morning throughout the country with the country's Supreme Leader Seyed Ali Khamenei's ingratiating vote.

As scheduled, polling stations in Iran opened simultaneously at 9 AM local time (04:30 GMT) to admit 46.7 million eligible voters choosing the next president among seven candidates.

The seven candidates are former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former Higher Education Minister Mostafa Moin, former police chief Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, former parliamentary speaker Mahdi Karroubi, former state broadcasting body chief Ali Larijani, former Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Vice President Mohsen Mehralizadeh.

The first three have been viewed as the seeds according to recent polls. Mohsen Rezaei, former head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and a dragging conservative candidate, withdrew the race at the last minute.

Rafsanjani is bidding to regain the post he held from 1989 to 1997. He masterminded arms-for-hostages swaps with the United States in the 1980s.

He says the time is right for a "new chapter" in Iran-US ties. And it could start with Washington unblocking billions of US dollars of frozen assets.

Polls of 67 million Iranians show Rafsanjani , though remaining front runner for months, is not guaranteed to succeed, for his supporting rate has never reached 30 percent.

According to Iran's law, if nobody garners at least 50 percent of the votes, the top two vote-getters will have to go to a runoff held one week later, which means more uncertainties due to the reshuffled voters.

Reformist Mostafa Moin is one of his closest rivals. He's promised to tackle human rights abuses.

There's also conservative Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, a former police chief said to enjoy the backing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The campaign has broken taboos in the Islamic state as candidates try to appeal to young voters.

(Xinhua News Agency, CCTV.com June 17, 2005)