TEHRAN, June 18: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a staunch backer of the hardline religious leadership which holds real power in Iran, has won the votes of the pious poor to secure a place in an unprecedented presidential run-off vote.

In a campaign where other candidates broke taboos by discussing improving ties with the United States, the 49-year-old Tehran mayor said recently that relations with Washington were ‘not the key to all of our problems’.

“We must resolve our domestic problems and become a stronger country. Under such conditions, we will be less vulnerable to foreign threats,” Mr Ahmadinejad said during the campaign.

He has traded on his humble origins and Islamic credentials, such as his role as an instructor with the Basij militia, the zealous enforcers of the principles of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

“It is my religious duty to vote ... I will vote for Ahmadinejad. He is a real Muslim. He has promised to fight poverty,” said journalist Mehri Ranjbar, voting in gritty south Tehran on Friday.

A former special forces officer in the Revolutionary Guards, Mr Ahmadinejad is a leading member of a new generation of lay politicians fiercely loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Son of a blacksmith, he was elected mayor of Tehran in 2003 when turnout sank to a record low. In the 1990s he was governor of Ardebil, a religiously conservative city in northwestern Iran, where he had to deal with floods and an earthquake.

MAN OF THE PEOPLE: Campaign adverts cast him as a man of the people, attending to the needs of the elderly, poor and war-wounded while rebuffing wealthy opportunists trying to circumvent regulations to make a quick profit.