Iran’s moderate president wins big
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s moderate President Hassan Rouhani trounced a hard-line challenger to secure reelection in results announced Saturday, saying his country seeks peace and friendship as it pursues a “path of coexistence and interaction with the world.”
Friday’s election was widely seen as a referendum on the 68-year-old cleric’s push for greater freedom at home and outreach to the wider world, which culminated in the completion of a landmark 2015 nuclear deal that hard-liners initially opposed.
The nuclear deal won Iran relief from international sanctions in exchange for limits on its contested nuclear program. But Iran continues to suffer from high unemployment and a dearth of foreign investment, putting pressure on Rouhani to show he can do more to turn the sluggish economy around.
Rouhani highlighted his desire for further outreach — and with it, the prospect of creating jobs through outside investment — in his victory speech.
“Today, Iran — prouder than ever — is ready to promote its relations with the world based on mutual respect and national interests,” he said in a televised addressed flanked by photos of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Khamenei’s predecessor, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran’s 1979 revolution.
Iran “is not ready to accept humiliation and threat,” he continued. “This is the most important message that our nation expects to be heard by all — particularly world powers.”
As a possible sign of that stance, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Saturday it has sanctioned nine more U.S.-linked businesses, organizations and people over America’s sanctions over Tehran’s ballistic-missile program. The sanctions means Iran could seize local Rouhani assets of the companies targeted and bar employees from the country.
Rouhani secured a commanding 57 percent of the vote in a race that drew more than seven out of every 10 voters to the polls. His nearest rival in the four-man race, hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi, won 38 percent of the vote, according to official tallies that covered more than 99 percent of votes cast.
Although considered a moderate by Iranian standards, Rouhani was the favorite pick for those seeking more liberal reforms in the conservative Islamic Republic. He appeared to embrace a more reformminded role during the campaign as he openly criticized hard-liners and Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force involved in the war in Syria and the fight against the Islamic State group in neighboring Iraq.
That gave hope to his supporters, who during recent campaign rallies called for the release of two reformist leaders of the 2009 Green Movement who remain under house arrest. The two figures, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, both endorsed Rouhani, as did Mohammad Khatami, another reformist who served as Iran’s president from 1997 to 2005.
Rouhani was first elected in 2013 with 51 percent of the vote.
Cliff Kupchan, chairman of the Eurasia Group, said the landslide win gives Rouhani a mandate he lacked in his first term.
“Though he’ll remain a centrist, Rouhani will be more aggressive in pursuing reforms,” Kupchan predicted.
“Rouhani will continue to face an uphill climb on political reform; the hard-liners will dig in around education and other issues,” Kupchan wrote. “But working with a centrist parliament, he will begin to ease the political darkness that followed the 2009 election.”
Iran’s president is the second-most powerful figure in Iran’s political system. He is subordinate to the supreme leader, who is chosen by a clerical panel and has the ultimate say over all matters of state.