IRAN: "Who's Mustafa Moin?" asked a woman in a black chador as she read the list of candidates for Iran's presidential elections in south Tehran.
"Haven't got a clue. But if we haven't heard of him, he's not worth voting for," replied her companion, reflecting the capital's deep social divide.
While Moin, the main candidate of the reformist party, might be the darling of the students and intellectual middle classes, he has not had the same effect in south Tehran, the hub of the 1979 Islamic Revolution where conservative Islamic values are still deeply entrenched.
Even if the residents of Shahr-e-Rey, a poor, working-class district, were familiar with Moin, they weren't voting for him.
"It's all very well that he wants to free political prisoners," said Elhum, a 23-year-old housewife. "But I need to get bread on my table, and that's why I'm voting for Mahmoud Ahmadinejat."
Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi-Lari predicted even before the polls closed last night that there would be a second round between the two highest vote-getters.
The camps of former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and reformist Moin said after polls closed the two candidates would meet in a run-off. Official results are expected today.
Conservative candidates like Tehran's mayor, Ahmadinejat, enjoyed a surprisingly high-turnout. Ahmadinejat did not even feature in recent polls, an indication that Iran's presidential elections are the tightest and most unpredictable in the Islamic regime's 26-year history.
Ex-police chief Mohammad Qalibaf's soft-focus posters of him as a square-jawed hunk might not have done the trick with the youth vote he was so desperate for, but his conservative values, peppered with a smattering of modernity, have persuaded many Iranians of all classes.
Unofficial opinion polls have placed Rafsanjani in first place. A political chameleon, in the past Rafsanjani has flirted with both reformists and conservatives and is seen by many as the man who can solve Iran's nuclear crisis with the US.
His readiness to resume ties with the West has not only bought him votes among the young, hungry for Western-style culture and freedom, but also among conservative voters with more pragmatic views.
"Of course ties with America are good. America's the most powerful country in the world, and our economy needs to have closer relations with the West," said Mullah Ahmad Abdollahi.
However, even Rafsanjani's popularity was not overly evident at the polls. A steady stream of voters filed through the modern mosque on fashionable Fereshteh Street. But despite being the centre of the Rafsanjani campaign action - the office here was a cool hangout for young Rafsanjani supporters who played loud music and swapped phone numbers - there was a visible absence of the rich kids who used to parade up and down the street in their tight, garish Islamic gear.
Instead, as elsewhere in the city, the voters were evenly split between conservatives and reformists.
The votes were more predictable in Tehran University, a reformist stronghold, where the turnout was considerably higher than expected. A long queue of students stood patiently in the blistering midday sun, evidence that the boycott movement, spearheaded by student groups, dramatically abated just days before the elections.
And despite a higher than expected turnout, the disillusioned were also there.
"I've had enough of empty promises. Never again," said Babak, sipping his cappuccino.