Street fighter trounces conservatives
ankara — A mild-mannered cleric known for decades as an establishment insider, Iran’s President Hasan Rohani reinvented himself as a rabble-rousing political street fighter to secure a decisive re-election victory against a united conservative bloc.
Now, having stoked his supporters’ yearning for change, he faces the harder task of satisfying them without bringing a backlash from the conservatives who still control most of the levers of power.
A pragmatist rather than a gungho reformer by nature, Rohani nevertheless fired up the pro-reform camp with speeches that broke taboos by targeting Iran’s hardline elite, from the conservative judiciary to the powerful Revolutionary Guards.
Rohani has decisively defeated Khamenei’s protege, hardline judge Ebrahim Raisi. But the supreme leader still makes the ultimate decisions on policy, and his conservative faction still controls the judiciary and security forces.
Rohani will have to find an accommodation with them, or end up like his reformist predecessor Mohammad Khatami, who whetted Iranians’ appetite for change but failed to deliver it during two terms from 1997-2005.
Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies programme at Stanford University, said: “Rohani upped the ante in the past ten days in the rhetoric that he used. Clearly it’s going to be difficult to back down on some of this stuff.” Rohani built his reputation as an establishment figure who could deliver some of the aims sought by reformists without alienating conservatives.
Born into a religious family in 1948 and rising to the middle ranks within the Shia clergy, Rohani was active in the revolution that overthrew the US-backed Shah in 1979.
He has held several sensitive jobs in the Islamic Republic, including representing Khamenei for 25 years at the Supreme National Security Council. When he was swept to office four years ago with three times as many votes as his nearest challenger, Iranians held high hopes that he could fulfil his promises to reduce the country’s isolation abroad and bring more freedoms at home.
He promised to heal the wounds of the previous presidential vote in 2009, when mass reformist protests were violently crushed after the disputed the re-election of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The crowning achievement of Rohani’s first term was a deal with global powers to curb Iran’s nuclear programme in return for the lifting of most financial sanctions. Crucially, Rohani’s government won the cautious backing of the hardline supreme leader for the deal.
But since the accord was reached, the promised economic benefits have been slow to arrive.
Meanwhile, there was little progress on giving Iranians more freedom at home to gather, communicate and dress as they please.
As his campaign for re-election got under way, many reformist voters said they were disillusioned, an apathy Rohani’s allies saw as the biggest threat to his re-election. His fiery rhetoric in the final days of the campaign was intended to whip up support from reformists and remind them of the high stakes. — Reuters