Tehran(May 20, 2017): Hassan Rouhani secured a second term with a landslide win at Iran’s presidential election, delivering a decisive victory for pro-reform groups desperate to open up the Islamic republic and reengage with the outside world.
Mr Rouhani, a pragmatist who sealed Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers, had garnered 22.7m votes after 39m ballots were counted, state television said.
His hardline opponent, Ebrahim Raisi, a senior cleric who was running for office for the first time, had 15.4m votes. Turnout was expected to be more than 70 per cent in a country with 52m eligible voters.
The scale of Mr Raisi’s defeat is a humiliating blow to regime hardliners, with the cleric believed to have enjoyed the backing of the Revolutionary Guards, the judiciary and the conservative clergy – some of the most powerful bodies in the theocratic regime. People have realised that their destiny would be determined in this election.
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This is one of the turning points in the Islamic republic’s history Fatemeh Hashemi, the daughter of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the founders of the Islamic republic Mr Rouhani’s victory signals a strong popular mandate to accelerate tentative reforms.
The result will also be welcomed in western capitals and business circles as it will provide greater certainty in terms of Tehran’s foreign relations and its commitment to the nuclear deal.
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