Rouhani projected to win 2nd term

TEHRAN, May 20 (MNA) – The incumbent, Hassan Rouhani, has apparently retained office by winning the 12th round of presidential elections held in Iran on Friday. After long hours of waiting, Spokesman of Elections Headquarters finally appeared among reporters and officially announced confirmed results of nearly 26 million votes counted so far. On the basis of the report, Hassan Rouhani has so far won 14,619,848 votes out of 25,966,729 counted polls to apparently remain in office for four more years. His main challenger Seyed Ebrahim Raeisi former deputy of Judiciary and current custodian of Astan Quds Razavi (Holy Shrine of Imam Reza) in Mashhad, has gained 10,125,855 votes. The other two candidates former minister Mostafa Mirsalim and former VP Hashemi Taba also collected 297,276 and 139,131 votes, respectively.