• World
  • Jun 20

Ebrahim Raisi wins Iran’s presidential election

• Iran’s hardline judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi won a landslide victory in the country’s presidential election. 

• Raisi is a close ally of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has ultimate political power in Iran.

• Since its 1979 revolution toppled the US-backed monarchy, ultimate power in Iran rests with the supreme leader. But the president wields major influence in areas from industrial policy to foreign affairs.

Low turnout for polling

• Many political heavyweights were barred from contesting in the election. Many voters chose to stay away after the field of some 600 hopefuls, including 40 women, had been winnowed down to seven candidates, all men, excluding an ex-president and a former parliament speaker. Three of the vetted candidates dropped out two days before the vote.

• Turnout in the polling on June 18 was a record low of around 48.8 per cent. Out of over 59 million eligible voters, only 28.9 million voted. Of those voting, some 3.7 million people either accidentally or intentionally voided their ballots, far beyond the amount seen in previous elections and suggesting some wanted none of the four candidates. Elections in 2017 and 2012 saw some 1.2 million voided ballots apiece.

• Raisi won 17.9 million votes overall, nearly 62 per cent of the total 28.9 million cast.

• Iran does not allow international election observers to monitor its polls.

• Appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to the high-profile job of judiciary chief in 2019, Raisi was placed under US sanctions a few months later over human rights violations. Those included the role that human rights group say Raisi played in the executions of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 and in the violent suppression of unrest in 2009.

• Iran has never acknowledged the mass executions, and Raisi himself has never publicly addressed allegations about his role.

• Outgoing President Hassan Rouhani, 72, leaves office in August after serving the maximum two consecutive four-year-terms allowed under the constitution.

• Rouhani’s landmark achievement was the 2015 deal with world powers under which Iran agreed to limit its nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief

• Raisi’s election comes at a critical time. Iran and six major powers are in talks to revive their 2015 nuclear deal. Former US President Donald Trump abandoned the deal in 2018 and reimposed crippling sanctions that have squeezed Iran’s oil income.

• Iran seeks to salvage its tattered nuclear deal with major powers and free itself from punishing US sanctions that have driven a sharp economic downturn.

• Iran and world powers are resuming indirect talks in Vienna on June 20 to resurrect Tehran’s tattered 2015 nuclear deal.

How other countries reacted to Raisi’s victory?

• The United States said it regretted that Iranians were not able to participate in a free and fair electoral process in the country’s presidential election.

• Iran’s regional allies, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and militant Islamist group Hamas welcomed Raisi’s election. 

• Israeli PM Naftali Bennett said Iran’s presidential election was a sign for world powers to wake up before returning to a nuclear agreement with Tehran.

• Indian PM Narendra Modi congratulated Raisi, and said he looked forward to working with him to further strengthen the warm ties between India and Iran.

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