Ebrahim Noroozi/Associated Press
Women at a polling station in Qum, Iran.
TEHRAN — As voting in the Iranian presidential election began on Friday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, lashed out at the United States.
Addressing American skepticism about the outcome of the election, he told reporters: “To hell with you if you do not believe in our election! If the Iranian nation had to wait for you to see what you believe in and what you do not, then the Iranian nation would have lagged behind.”
He was responding to comments from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who said last month in Washington that he expected no shift in Iran’s nuclear policies because Ayatollah Khamenei is responsible for the program.
"I do not have high expectations that the election is going to change the fundamental calculus of Iran," Mr. Kerry said. "This is not a portfolio that is in the hands of a new president or the president; it’s in the hands of the supreme leader. And the supreme leader ultimately will make that decision, I believe.”
Polling stations opened at 8 a.m. and the ayatollah told reporters after he voted that candidates don’t matter, but the country does.
“I urge all to vote,” he said.
More than 50 million eligible Iranian voters will choose from six remaining candidates who were accepted by the conservative Guardian Council. Front-runners are Mayor Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf of Tehran, the nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and a cleric, Hassan Rowhani.
Mr. Rowhani has been promoting more freedom and rights for women and is supported by former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, 78, who himself was disqualified by the council, officially because of his age.
In the middle class neighborhood of Geysha, Mr. Rowhani was drawing votes. “He will change this country,” said Golnaz, 20, who refused to give her family name out of reasons of security. “We need change.”
In 2009 urban Iranians voted in large numbers for two reformers, former Prime Minister Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi. After they lost to president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, street protests erupted that lasted for months and propelled both candidates into opposition roles. They have been under house arrest for the past two years.
In several polling stations across Tehran, a city with a population of 12 million, voters said they voted for Mayor Ghalibaf, who has ridden the wave of Iran’s record oil income of the past decade and has improved the capital’s infrastructure.
“He is a war veteran, a good manager and a religious person,” said Noushin Sobhani, 31, a gynecologist. She and her parents voted at the Imam Sadegh University, where most of Iran’s cadre of bureaucrats is trained. “We hate America,” her father said, smiling. “I hope The New York Times building burns down.”
In the poorer south Tehran neighborhood of Javadieh, there were no lines in front of a voting station in a Shiite religious center. “People here are angry over high prices,” said a supermarket owner, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear for his security.
There were long lines in front of the bakery across the street and at a nearby ATM. On Thursday more than 60 million Iranians received their monthly direct cash subsidies. An older man and his grandson came to vote, but they had picked opposing candidates.
“I vote for Jalili,” the older man said. “And I for Rowhani,” said the grandson, Reza, 29. The younger man decided he thought Iran needs change, whereas his grandfather preferred confrontational foreign policy.
“Like the rest of the country we have different opinions,” Reza said.
Polling stations are expected to close at around 7 p.m. but there can be extensions. Results will come in “as soon as possible,” Interior Minister Mohammad Najjar said.
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