Iran: Hardliner Raisi elected as president
Amid a record low turnout, the cleric received 61.95% of the vote, an official said
TEHRAN: Ultra-conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi was declared the winner on Saturday of Iran’s presidential election, a widely anticipated result after many political heavyweights were barred from running.
Raisi was elected president with 61.95% of the vote, according to figures released by interior minister Aboldreza Rahmani Fazli on Saturday. Voter turnout was 48.8% of the more than 59 million eligible voters in Friday’s election, he said, a record low for a presidential election in the Islamic republic.
Appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to the high-profile job of judiciary chief in 2019, Raisi was placed under US sanctions a few months later over human rights violations.
Those included the role that human rights group say Raisi played in the executions of thousands of political prisoners in the 1988 and in the violent suppression of unrest in 2009.
Seen by analysts and insiders as representing the security establishment at its most fearsome, Raisi had been widely tipped to win the contest, thanks to Khamenei’s endorsement.
Amnesty International’s secretary-general Agnès Callamard said Raisi’s election win was “a grim reminder that impunity reigns supreme in Iran”.
Outgoing pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani visited Raisi at his office to congratulate him, and foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said he would lead Iran well.
“We will stand by and cooperate fully with the president-elect for the next 45 days, when the new government takes charge,” state media quoted Rouhani as saying.
Nuclear talks under way Raisi’s election comes at a critical time. Iran and six major powers are in talks to revive their 2015 nuclear deal. Then US president Donald Trump abandoned the deal in 2018 and reimposed crippling sanctions that have squeezed Iran’s oil income.
With Iran’s ruling clerics aware their political fortunes rely on tackling worsening economic hardships, Raisi’s win will not disrupt Iran’s effort to revive the pact and break free of tough US oil and financial sanctions.
Khamenei, not the president, has the last say on all issue of state such as Iran’s foreign and nuclear policies. “We will make every effort in the new government to solve the problem of people’s livelihoods,” Raisi said.
Seeking to win over voters preoccupied by bread-and-butter issues, Raisi has promised to create millions of jobs and tackle inflation, without offering a detailed political or economic programme.
Hoping to boost their legitimacy, the country’s clerical rulers had urged people to turn out and vote on Friday, but simmering anger over economic hardships and curbs on freedoms kept many Iranians at home. Hundreds of dissidents, at home and abroad, had called for a boycott.
Khamenei said the turnout displayed the clerical establishment’s popularity. Another deterrent for many pro-reform voters was a lack of choice, after a hardline election body barred heavyweight moderates and conservatives from standing.
A US state department spokesperson said on Friday: “Iranians were denied their right to choose their own leaders in a free and fair electoral process” a likely reference to the disqualification of candidates.