Iran re-elects moderate Rouhani

USA TODAY

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, whose more moderate policies included greater internal freedoms and a landmark 2015 nuclear deal with the U.S. that brought about some sanctions relief, won a resounding victory for a second four-year term, Iranian State TV said Saturday.

Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said at a news conference that the 68-year-old cleric won 57 percent of the vote against three other contenders to avoid a runoff.

Voting hours were extended several times because of the high turnout — 41.2 million voters, or 73 percent electorate.

As Rouhani’s victory looked increasingly likely late Friday, some female drivers held out the V for victory sign and flashed car lights on highways in Tehran’s affluent north.

In 2013, Rouhani won his first term with nearly 51 percent of the vote. Turnout that year also was 73 percent.

Iran’s president is the second-most powerful figure in the country’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.

Still, the president oversees a vast state bureaucracy employing more than 2 million people, is charged with naming Cabinet of the members and other officials to key posts, and plays a significant role in shaping domestic and foreign policy.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a statement commending the Iranian people for their “massive and epic” turnout in the elections.

“The winner of the yesterday’s elections is you, the Iranian people, and the Islamic establishment, which has managed to win the increasing trust of this big nation despite the enemies’ plot and effort,” he said, according to PressTV.

Friday’s vote was largely a referendum on Rouhani’s more moderate political policies, which opened the way for the 2015 nuclear deal with President Barack Obama and key Western countries, as well as Russia and China.

President Donald Trump campaigned to scrap the agreement, but so far has maintained it and followed through on sanctions relief. Trump’s first stop of his initial foreign trip, which began Friday, was to Saudi Arabia, Iran’s arch-enemy.

Rouhani has come to embody more liberal and reformminded Iranians’ hopes for greater freedoms and openness in the conservative Islamic Republic and better relations with the outside world.

His nearest challenger was hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi, who garnered 15.7 million votes, or 38.5 percent.