Iranian Hard-Liner Ebrahim Raisi Wins Presidency Amid Nuclear Talks

Mr. Raisi’s principal challenger,
Abdolnaser Hemmati,
the only reasonable prospect left in the race, been given about 8.5{312eb768b2a7ccb699e02fa64aff7eccd2b9f51f6a579147b7ed58dbcded82a2} of the vote.

Iran’s latest president,
Hassan Rouhani,
frequented Mr. Raisi on Saturday to congratulate him on the victory.

Mr. Raisi has criticized his predecessor’s outreach to Western countries—and the U.S. has specific Iran’s new president with sanctions in 2019 for his near ties to the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader
Ali Khamenei.

But in the months in advance, Mr. Raisi is expected to forge a path ahead on the global nuclear deal that he suggests he supports and that Iranian and American diplomats are seeking to revive. A new nuclear deal with the U.S. is vital to reduction from crushing American sanctions, and a likely path back again to prosperity for Iran less than his administration.

Mr. Raisi’s victory was mostly the final result of a historically reduced turnout of forty eight.8{312eb768b2a7ccb699e02fa64aff7eccd2b9f51f6a579147b7ed58dbcded82a2}—a indication of the divisions within Iranian culture and a reflection of popular discontent with the lack of genuine alternative in the vote.

Hundreds of thousands of Iranians stayed home, partly to protest moves by the clerical establishment to tip the election in Mr. Raisi’s favor ahead of any ballots had been solid. In the weeks ahead of the vote, the country’s election supervisory body had disqualified almost all nonconservative candidates.

Invalid ballots represented about fourteen{312eb768b2a7ccb699e02fa64aff7eccd2b9f51f6a579147b7ed58dbcded82a2} of the overall tally, the second-premier share of the vote.

The results also mirror apathy amid Iranian voters towards the reformist and reasonable candidates. About two.four million Iranians, or about four{312eb768b2a7ccb699e02fa64aff7eccd2b9f51f6a579147b7ed58dbcded82a2} of qualified voters, solid ballots for Mr. Hemmati.

By comparison, the politically reasonable Mr. Rouhani won eighteen million votes in 2013 and 23.5 million in 2017. In the 2009 election, more liberal reformist candidates been given 13.5 million votes.

“Many Iranians have dropped any hope in reform,” reported Roham Alvandi, affiliate professor of global record at the London University of Economics. “Reformists who termed on folks to vote had been mostly ignored.”

With Mr. Raisi’s gain, Iran’s principal institutions are now controlled by the country’s conservatives, from the presidency and the armed service to the parliament and judiciary. Such results demonstrate Iran shifting towards a a single-party point out, analysts reported.

“This election would make specific what most Iranians have presently regarded implicitly: that the Islamic Republic will not countenance any tranquil reform,” Mr. Alvandi reported. “That erodes what minimal well-known legitimacy the latest political method has left.”

Mr. Raisi is due to be sworn in as president in early August.

Complicated troubles await. Iran is struggling with escalating threats and repeated confrontations with Center East rivals.

Iran’s financial difficulties have also presented rise to repeated bouts of unrest. As head of the country’s judiciary, Mr. Raisi has tolerated minimal dissent, presiding above mass arrests of journalists, attorneys and American citizens, together with dying sentences to quite a few minors.

The 60-yr-previous Mr. Raisi, who is also a cleric, has been element of Iran’s judicial method due to the fact the beginning of the Islamic Republic. He is regarded abroad for serving on a committee that in 1988 condemned thousands of political prisoners to dying.

Mr. Raisi researched in the early 1990s less than Mr. Khamenei and has by no means appeared to stray considerably from his positions. In return, Mr. Khamenei has rewarded his protégé with a collection of promotions.

Soon after heading Iran’s Common Inspection Office environment, an anticorruption body, for a 10 years, Mr. Raisi in 2004 turned deputy of the country’s judiciary. Mr. Khamenei appointed him prosecutor-typical in 2014, and picked him to head the Astan Quds Razavi, a charity value billions of pounds central to the supreme leader’s company passions.

Soon after Mr. Raisi dropped the 2017 presidential election to the incumbent president, Mr. Rouhani, the supreme chief appointed him head of the judiciary in 2019.

Mr. Raisi’s newest advance as president has led analysts to feel Mr. Khamenei is grooming him as his feasible successor as supreme chief. “It is not as if he is a heavyweight in any way,”
Mehrzad Boroujerdi,
director of the University of Public and Intercontinental Affairs at Virginia Tech, reported of Mr. Raisi. “Khamenei had no justification for providing him all these positions, if not to groom him for a higher-rating position, which I consider could be to realize success him.”

Mr. Khamenei, eighty two, was also president ahead of he was picked as supreme chief in 1989. His appointment arrived soon after the dying of Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini.

Even as a cleric in demand of Iran’s judiciary, Mr. Raisi has sought to solid himself as a person of the folks. When he ran for president in 2017, he posed for shots with a well-known, heavily tattooed rapper, Amir Tataloo, in an attempt to attractiveness to youthful voters.

In the course of the ultimate times of his election marketing campaign this yr, Mr. Raisi went to a assembly of athletes in Tehran and sat amid the group to enjoy parts of the soccer Planet Cup 2022 qualifier involving Iran and Iraq. He took notes when the athletes complained to him about their financial woes, these kinds of as very poor salaries and rewards.

Earlier in the week, folks flocked to his marketing campaign places of work with letters asking him for aid with their financial difficulties, equally to what supporters of previous populist President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
did.

How Mr. Raisi will technique Western nations, notably the U.S., depends mostly on whom he appoints to his cupboard. He has in the past criticized departing President Hassan Rouhani for pursuing diplomacy, which led to the 2015 global nuclear deal. Although Mr. Raisi has reported he supports the nuclear deal, since Mr. Khamenei has endorsed it, he has also reported he doesn’t belief the U.S.

Far more instantly, Mr. Raisi must address a flagging economic climate when retaining a examine on the Covid-19 pandemic.

Advancement in Iran has stuttered in latest several years, constrained by U.S. sanctions, when unemployment is higher and the local currency has plummeted in worth. The financial disaster has pushed more families into poverty. It has pushed Iranians to protest in the streets, exactly where they have been satisfied with brutal drive by safety forces.

Generate to Sune Engel Rasmussen at [email protected]