Tehran, Iran ? A wild and Western-style presidential campaign closed Thursday that may resume soon with a runoff election likely.

The stakes are high in today’s balloting because of Tehran’s negotiations with the West over its nuclear program and its role as a patron of the Shiite Muslim majority in neighboring Iraq.

“This is more than just who will be president,” said Saeed Hajjarian, a top adviser to outgoing President Mohammad Khatami, who was prevented from running for a third term by the Iranian constitution.

None of the seven candidates was expected to gain 50 percent of the vote today, which would force a presidential run-off between the two top vote-getters for the first time in Iran’s history.

The polls offer three directions: to try to rejuvenate Khatami’s crippled reforms, to reassert the influence of conservatives or to restore a powerful insider – Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani – to the presidency.

Iran has no official polling system, but national media portray Rafsanjani as the candidate to beat. Having served as president in 1989-97, he is one of Iran’s best known statesmen and the patriarch of a family business empire.

President Bush said Thursday in Washington that Iran’s election will mean little because real power rests with the clerics “who suppress liberty at home and spread terror across the world.”