Iran's run-off parliamentary election ends

By Parisa Hafezi and Zahra Hosseinian

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranians voted on Friday in a run-off parliamentary election expected to leave conservatives still firmly in control after many moderates were disqualified in the first round.

Polling stations closed at 9 p.m. (5:30 p.m. British time), three hours after the scheduled closing time, state television said. Such extensions are common in Iranian elections to allow more voters to cast ballots.

Conservatives won a majority of seats in the 290-member parliament in the first round of the election in March, but in some places no candidate secured enough votes to win -- hence the run-off.

Moderate opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the vote was unfair because the unelected Guardian Council, which screens candidates on their commitment to Islam and Iran's clerical system, barred many of them from running in March.

Reformists, who secured more than 30 seats in the first round, have called for a high turn-out to give the opposition a bigger voice.

Iranians voted to elect 82 lawmakers out of 164 candidates in 100 cities. The new parliament will begin work in May.

"The turn-out is expected to be more than the turn-out in the 2004 run-off parliamentary vote, which was around 20 percent," Alireza Afshar, head of the Interior Ministry's election headquarters, told state television. "Counting of votes will start on Saturday."

The turn-out in the March vote was around 60 percent.