Time.news – Ultraconservative candidate Ebrahim Raisi won Iranian presidential election with 62% of the vote. This is the official result, albeit still partial. The preliminary results, released by the Ministry of the Interior, are based on the scrutiny of 90% of the ballots, without calculating the invalid ones. Turnout is below 50% (around 48%), down from the last presidential elections in 2017, when the figure was 73%. The entitled parties were 59.3 million. All Raisi’s rivals have already congratulated him on the “victory” even before the partial data was announced.
Rohani’s announcement
The Iranians elected the new president in the first round, the outgoing president, Hassan Rohani announced, without specifying the name of the winner. “I congratulate the people for the choice they have made,” Rohani said on TV. “My official congratulations will come later, but we know who got enough votes in this election and who was elected by the people today,” Rohani added.
The only moderate candidate in the Iranian presidential elections, former central bank governor Abdolnasser Hemmati congratulated his rival, Raisi, on winning the election, although the results of the vote have not yet been announced officially and the Ministry of the Interior announced that the count is still in progress. “I congratulate you on your election as 13th president of the Islamic Republic of Iran; I hope that his government, under the leadership of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, will bring comfort and prosperity to the nation, ”Hemmati wrote in a letter relaunched by the official media.
“I hope that his administration is a source of pride for the Islamic Republic and improves the economy and life of the great nation of Iran,” added Hemmati. Shortly before, it was the conservative candidate, former Pasdaran commander, Mohsen Rezai, who congratulated Raisi on his “victory” and admitted defeat. Raisi has not yet made any statements.
The head of the judiciary, close to Khamenei, was the super favorite in yesterday’s vote, marked by a poor representation of the political fields: the Guardians Council, the body controlled by the Supreme Guide and which checks the suitability of aspiring candidates, had not admitted to the electoral race several figures who could hinder Raisi’s path towards the presidency.
Negotiations with the US on nuclear power
Presidential election in Iran looms over Washington as it negotiates with Tehran to bring US back into nuclear deal. “We’ll see what happens,” said US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, during an event of the German Marshall Fund, admitting that the elections could “complicate” the progress made in the last weeks of negotiations in Vienna.
Raisi, favored to the succession of Hassan Rohani, who with Barack Obama had signed in 2015 the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (Jcpoa) from which Donald Trump left in 2018, was sanctioned by the United States in 2019 for violation of human rights, including the execution of minors and the torture of prisoners. Raisi, head of the Iranian judiciary supported by Ayatollah Khamenei, was also involved in the brutal repression of protests by the Green Movement. boys and girls of whom nothing is known anymore.
Washington would of course not negotiate directly with the Iranian president but his election would also reinforce criticism of the White House in the United States. because Biden is considered too soft with Tehran. According to Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project of the International Crisis Group, the lifting of sanctions against Raisi is on the negotiating table in Vienne but Biden is unlikely to approve it.
Khamenei insists that the United States lift all sanctions before Iran can return to comply with the terms of the JCPO. The Trump administration imposed about 1,500 sanctions against Iran in 2018. The White House has made it known that it is willing to terminate countermeasures “not consistent” with the terms of the nuclear deal.
Last week, three former Tehran government officials were removed from the US blacklist, “following a verified change in behavior”. State Department spokesman Ned Price categorically ruled out that it was a move related to the JCPOA negotiations (“there is no connection”). Republicans are against US reentry into the nuclear deal as US officials speak of concrete steps forward, with the stars and stripes team led by special envoy for Iran Robert Malley, who led 6 rounds of negotiations in April.
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