Iran votes in head-to-head between diplomacy and resistance

Iranians vote for their president on Friday in a contest likely to determine whether Tehran's re-engagement with the world stalls or quickens, as voters will decide the fate of moderate President Hassan Rouhani and his policy of engagement with the West, who is going head-to-head with hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi.

Seeking a second term, pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani, 68, remains the narrow favourite, but hardline rivals have hammered him over his failure to boost an economy weakened by decades of sanctions.

Rouhani has spent four years trying to pull Iran out of its global isolation, reaching a 2015 deal with world powers that ended some sanctions in exchange for curbs to its nuclear programme. However, many Iranians the agreement has failed to produce the jobs, growth and foreign investment he said would follow. Now, with US President Donald Trump threatening to scrap the deal, and visiting Iran's regional rival Saudi Arabia this weekend, that policy of detente looks increasingly in jeopardy.

The normally mild-mannered cleric is trying to hold on to office by firing up reformist voters who want less confrontation abroad and more social and economic freedom at home.

In recent days he has adopted robust rhetoric, pushing at the boundaries of what is permitted in Iran. He has accused his conservative opponents of abusing human rights, misusing religious authority to gain power and representing the economic interests of the security forces.

Rouhani's strongest challenger, hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi, 56, has agreed to stick by the nuclear accord but says Rouhani put too much trust in the West. He is promising a revival of the values of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and has the backing of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, the country's top security force, their affiliated volunteer Basij militia, hardline clerics and two influential clerical groups.

"We should not show any weakness in the face of the enemy," Raisi during a televised debate.

Leading conservative Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, dropped out on Monday and threw his support behind Raisi, uniting the hardline faction and giving Raisi's chances a boost.

On Tuesday reformist first vice president Eshaq Jahangiri pulled out and endorsed Rouhani's incumbent.

A recent poll had put support for the two hardliners at 52% and for Mr Rouhani at about 42%. Another had Rouhani at 29%, Qalibaf at 12% and Raisi at 11%, with 28% respondents undecided and 20% declining to answer.

Under Iran's system, the powers of the elected president are circumscribed by those of the conservative supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been in power since 1989. All candidates must be vetted by a hardline body.