Iranians are voting to elect a new president, the BBC reports.
Opinion polls suggest Ebrahim Raisi, a conservative Shia cleric who heads the judiciary, is the clear favorite.
Moderate former central bank governor Abdolnasser Hemmati is his main rival.
Dissidents and some reformists have called for a boycott, saying the barring of several contenders left Mr Raisi with no serious competition.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei cast his vote early on Friday morning in Tehran and encouraged people to go the polls.
“Each vote counts … come and vote and choose your president,” he said. “This is important for the future of your country,”he said.
Mr Rouhani, a moderate who sought to engage with the West, cannot stand for re-election because he has served two consecutive four-year terms.
Almost 600 hopefuls, including 40 women, registered for the election.
But in the end only seven men were approved last month by the 12 jurists and theologians on the hard-line Guardian Council, an unelected body that has the ultimate decision with regard to candidates’ qualifications.
Eshaq Jahangiri, Mr Rouhani’s first vice-president, and Ali Larijani, a conservative former speaker of parliament, were among the prominent candidates not allowed to run.
By Thursday, three of the approved candidates – Supreme National Security Council secretary Saeed Jalili, MP Alireza Zakani, and reformist former Vice-President Mohsen Mehralizadeh – had dropped out.
Mr Jalili and Mr Zakani, who are hardliners, both endorsed Mr Raisi, while Mr Mehralizadeh said he wanted to “unify” the reformist vote – an apparent endorsement for Mr Hammati.
If no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote in the first round there will be a run-off election.
