Incumbent president remains the front-runner as Iran goes to the polls
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani has staked his political future on opening Iran ever so slightly to the outside world and overcoming hardliners’ opposition to secure a historic nuclear deal in elections taking place today.
The 68-year-old cleric, a moderate within Iran’s political system, has history on his side as Iranians vote for president. No incumbent president has failed to win re-election since 1981, when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the current supreme leader and most powerful man in Iran, became president himself.
Political analysts and the scant polling data available suggest Mr Rouhani will come out on top among the four candidates left running, though an outright win is by no means assured. Failure to secure a majority today would send the two top vote-getters into a runoff a week later.
His supporters streamed into downtown Tehran streets thick with police for rallies that lasted into the early hours yesterday, just ahead of a 24-hour no-campaigning period before the vote. Wearing Mr Rouhani’s signature purple on ribbons and loosely draped headscarves, they honked, cheered and chanted slogans in support of Mir Hossein Mousavi, one of two Iranian opposition leaders under house arrest since 2011 who back Mr Rouhani.
The rallies were largely peaceful even as Rouhani supporters faced off against smaller crowds supporting his main rival, hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi, though police rushed reinforcements to break up Rouhani rallies that grew large enough to block traffic.
Working against Mr Rouhani is a sense among many Iranians that the 2015 nuclear deal, which saw Iran accept limits on its atomic energy program, has failed to deliver an economic windfall.
“No matter who’s the next president, whoever comes to power should bring a better economy,” hair stylist Reza Ghavidel said.
Although nuclear-related sanctions were lifted because of the deal, other international sanctions remain in effect. That leaves banks and many big corporations wary of doing business with Iran.
Unemployment, meanwhile, remains stuck in the double digits, with nearly a third of Iranian youth out of work, according to the International Monetary Fund.
“This election is about the economy,” said Cliff Kupchan, the chairman of the Eurasia Group.
Mr Rouhani’s stiffest challenge comes from Raisi, a professor and former prosecutor who heads an influential religious charitable foundation with vast business holdings.