Hassan Rohani wins Iranian presidential election
Hassan Rohani was named Iran’s new president Saturday after voters turned out last week for the historical election. Rohani will take over from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has held the post for two consecutive terms.
- Iranian President-elect Hassan Rohani (C) speaks to the media following a visit to the Khomeini mausoleum in Tehran June 16, 2013. (Seyed Hassan Mousavi/Fars News via Reuters)
- Iranian supporters of President-elect Hassan Rowhani gather at the mausoleum of the founder of Iran’s Islamic Republic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in Tehran on June 16, 2013, during a visit of Rowhani at the mausoleum. (Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images)
- Iranian supporters of President-elect Hassan Rowhani gather at the mausoleum of the founder of Iran’s Islamic Republic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in Tehran on June 16, 2013, during a visit of Rowhani to the mausoleum. (Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images)
- A supporter of moderate cleric Hassan Rohani celebrates his victory in Iran’s presidential election along a street in Tehran June 16, 2013. Rohani won Iran’s presidential election on Saturday, the interior ministry said, scoring a surprising landslide victory over conservative hardliners without the need for a second round run-off. (Yalda Moayeri/Reuters)
- An Iranian woman celebrates the victory of moderate presidential candidate Hassan Rowhani in the presidential elections at Vanak Square, in northern Tehran, on June 15, 2013. (Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images)
- Supporters of moderate cleric Hassan Rohani gesture as they celebrate his victory in Iran’s presidential election along a street in Tehran June 15, 2013. (Yalda Moayeri/Reuters)
- Supporters of moderate cleric Hassan Rohani celebrate his victory in Iran’s presidential election along a street in Tehran June 16, 2013. (Yalda Moayeri/Reuters)
- Supporters of moderate cleric Hassan Rohani celebrate his victory in Iran’s presidential election on a street in Tehran June 15, 2013. (Sina Shiri/Fars News via Reuters)
- A supporter of moderate cleric Hassan Rohani gestures with a picture of him as she celebrates his victory in Iran’s presidential election on a street in Tehran June 15, 2013. (Sina Shiri/Fars News via Reuters)
- Supporters of moderate cleric Hassan Rohani hold a picture of him as they celebrate his victory in Iran’s presidential election on a pedestrian bridge in Tehran June 15, 2013. (Sina Shiri/Fars News via Reuters)
- Supporters of moderate cleric Hassan Rohani hold his pictures as they celebrate his victory in Iran’s presidential election on the streets of Tehran June 15, 2013. (Amir Hashen Dehgani/Fars News via Reuters)
- Supporters of moderate cleric Hassan Rohani celebrate his victory in Iran’s presidential election on a street in Tehran June 15, 2013. (Amir Hashen Dehgani/Fars News via Reuters)
- Iranians gather under a giant portrait of moderate presidential candidate, Hassan Rowhani outside his campaign headquarters in downtown Tehran on June 15, 2013. (Behrouz Behri/AFP/Getty Images)
- Supporters of moderate cleric Hassan Rohani celebrate his victory in Iran’s presidential election on a pedestrian bridge in Tehran June 15, 2013. (Amir Hashen Dehgani/Fars News via Reuters)
- Election officials open sealed ballot boxes as they prepare to count votes for the Iranian presidential elections in Qom, 120 kilometers south of Tehran June 15, 2013. (Seyed Ruhollah Kalantari/Fars News via Reuters)
- Election officials count votes during the Iranian presidential elections in Qom, 75 miles south of Tehran, June 15, 2013. Moderate cleric Hassan Rohani took a solid lead over conservative rivals on Saturday in preliminary vote counting in Iran’s presidential election in what could be the makings of a surprise victory over favoured hardliners. (Seyed Ruhollah Kalantari/Fars News via Reuters)
- Polling officials mark the “elections page” of a birth certificate of a voter at the Masjid u Nabi mosque in central Tehran, Iran, to assure that voters cast only one ballot in the Iranian presidential elections, Friday, June 14, 2013. (Roy Gutman/MCT)
- Polling officials mark “elections page” of birth certificate of voter at the Masjid u Nabi mosque in central Tehran, Iran, to assure that voters cast only one ballot in the Iranian presidential elections, Friday, June 14, 2013. (Roy Gutman/MCT)
- A woman shows the ink stain on her finger, to prove that she has voted, outside the Iranian consulate in central London June 14, 2013. (Stefan Wermuth/Reuters)
- A voter drops a paper ballot in the plastic bin at the Qolhak Jame mosque in north central Tehran, Iran, during Iranian presidential elections, Friday, June 14, 2013. (Roy Gutman/MCT)
- Voter Zeynab shows the ink stain on her finger, to prove that she has voted, outside the Iranian consulate in central London June 14, 2013. The building was the focus for demonstrators, as it was used as a venue for British based Iranians to cast their vote in their country’s election to choose a new president. (Stefan Wermuth/Reuters)
- A woman casts her ballot with her family at a polling station at the Iranian embassy in Beirut June 14, 2013. (Jamal Saidi/Reuters)
- Presidential candidate Hassan Rohani casts his ballot during the Iranian presidential election in Tehran June 14, 2013. (Yalda Moayeri/Reuters)
- An Iranian citizen shows her finger covered in ink after voting in the Iranian presidential election at a polling station set up inside the Manassas Masjid mosque in Manassas, Virginia June 14, 2013. Iranian-Americans and expatriates in the Washington area streamed to polling stations Friday to have a say in their homeland’s presidential election. (Sasan Afsoosi/AFP/Getty Images)
- Ghassem Tofighi, a Ph.D student at Ryerson University in Toronto, poses next to a sign that says “entekhabat” in Farsi or “election” in English after he voted for president of Iran June 14, 2013 at the Islamic Cultural Center of New York in the Queens borough of New York. Tofighi took a bus from Toronto to New York to vote since there were no polling places in Canada for the Iranian election. (Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images)
- An Iranian citizen living in the Washington DC area casts her ballot in the Iranian presidential election at a polling station set up at the Manassas Masjid mosque in Manassas, Virginia June 14, 2013. (Sasan Afsoosi/AFP/Getty Images)
- Iranian women stand in line with their passports as they wait to vote for the Iranian presidential election at the Iranian Consulate in Kerbala, 110 km (70 miles) south of Baghdad, June 14, 2013.(Mushtaq Muhammed/Reuters)
- Iranian women show their documents as they queue to vote in the first round of the presidential election at a polling station in Tehran on June 14, 2013. (Atta Kanare/AFP/Getty Images)
- Iranians pose for pictures as they wait to vote during the Iranian presidential election at a Shi’ite mosque in Baghdad’s Kadhimiya district, June 14, 2013. (Thaier al-Sudani/Reuters)
- Men stand in line to vote during the Iranian presidential election at a mosque in Qom June 14, 2013. (Mohammad Akhlagi/Fars News via Reuters)
- Presidential candidate Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf (front L) shows the ink on his finger after casting his ballot during the Iranian presidential election in Tehran June 14, 2013. (Sina Shiri/Fars News via Reuters)
- A cleric fills in his ballot paper during the Iranian presidential election at a mosque in Qom June 14, 2013. (Mohammad Akhlagi via Reuters)
- An Iranian citizen casts her ballot to elect a new Iranian president at the Iranian consulate in Herat on June 14, 2013. (Aref Karimi/AFP/Getty Images)
Iranians count on president-elect Rohani to bring change
Zahra Hosseinian, Reuters
3:35 p.m. EDT, June 16, 2013
DUBAI (Reuters) – Iranian president-elect Hassan Rohani, who won a landslide victory promising better relations abroad and more freedom at home, on Sunday paid his first visit since the vote to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who will ultimately decide the pace of any change.
Rohani, a mid-ranking Shi’ite cleric, is an Islamic Republic insider who has held senior political and military posts since the 1979 Islamic revolution and maintained a good rapport with Khamenei, Iran’s most powerful man.
Iranian media reported that Khamenei congratulated Rohani, wished him success, and gave him “the necessary guidance”.
Rohani’s trouncing of his hardline rivals, who miscalculated the public mood and failed to overcome factional differences and field a single candidate, received a cautious welcome in Washington, although Israel warned against “wishful thinking” about Iran’s future direction.
While no reformer himself, Rohani gained the backing of the politically sidelined but still popular leaders of the reform movement. His call for an end to an “era of extremism” won over many voters tired of the economic crises and crackdowns on free speech that marked Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency.
However, Rohani’s surprise win – taking just over 50 percent of the vote – is not expected quickly to resolve Tehran’s nuclear stand-off with the West or break its commitment to backing President Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s civil war.
U.S. President Barack Obama’s chief of staff Denis McDonough said: “If he (Rohani) is interested in, as he has said in his campaign, mending Iran’s relations with the rest of the world, there is an opportunity to do that.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has urged ever tighter sanctions and has threatened military force to stop Iran getting nuclear weapons, said: “The international community must not give in to wishful thinking or temptation and loosen the pressure on Iran for it to stop its nuclear programme.”
KNOWN IN THE WEST
Rohani’s win goes some way to repairing the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic, punctured four years ago when dozens were killed in protests after an election that reformists said was rigged, and may help pragmatic voices silenced since then to re-emerge.
Known in the West as Iran’s main nuclear negotiator in 2003-05, Rohani immediately sought to build bridges, expressing approval of the street parties that welcomed his election but also having talks with the conservative speaker of parliament.
“With their celebrations last night, the Iranian people showed they are hopeful about the future and, God willing, morals and moderation will govern the country,” he told Iranian television.
Whether Rohani succeeds in ushering in change, or the next four years yield the same stalemate that marked the 1997-2005 presidency of reformist Mohammad Khatami, will hinge on his ability to balance the demands and expectations of the people with the interests of those who hold the main levers of power.
Rohani may have an advantage that Khatami, director of the national library before becoming president, never enjoyed.
“Rohani is the ultimate regime insider. In contrast to Khatami, who held no governmental position when he was catapulted into the presidency, Rohani has never been out of power or Khamenei’s good graces,” said Ali Vaez, Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group.
“Also, Rohani is a centrist politician, with a unique bridge-building ability. He is unlikely to alienate competing power centres, who can stymie his reforms.”
One big pointer will be whether Rohani pushes for the release of Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, the leading reformists held under house arrest since 2011. That demand was a constant chant of Rohani supporters at his campaign rallies and on the streets of Tehran and elsewhere overnight.
“This will in my view be the first real test of how sincere this election has been. Then we will know the calibre of Mr Rohani,” said Ali Ansari, professor at St. Andrew’s University in Scotland.
“Much depends on the political will of the fractured elite and the willingness of Khamenei to pull back. There is some anxiety that the powers that be, having got their ‘popular election’, will now settle back into their comfort zones.”
FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT
Despite similarities between Khatami’s and Rohani’s upset election victories, the political realities “are fundamentally different”, said Yasmin Alem, a U.S.-based Iran expert.
“The supreme leader is more powerful, the Revolutionary Guards are more influential, and the conservatives are more in control. However, Rohani is a crafty statesman and stands a better chance … of navigating Iran’s political minefield.”
Rohani himself called for patience soon after his win was announced on Saturday. “The country’s problems won’t be solved overnight and this needs to happen gradually and with consultation with experts,” he told the state news agency IRNA.
But Rohani, whose conciliatory style contrasts with the confrontational populism of Ahmadinejad, said there was a new chance “in the international arena for … those who truly respect democracy and cooperation and free negotiation”.
Post-election revellers were optimistic. “I am hopeful about the future, hopeful that we will have more social freedoms, more stability in Iran, better relations with other countries and hopefully a much better economy,” said Hoda, 26, from Tehran.
As well as chanting “Long live Rohani!” and wishing good riddance to the current president with “Ahmadi, bye bye!”, jubilant crowds did not shy from feting Mousavi, the reformist leader defeated in the election four years ago.
“Mousavi, Mousavi, congratulations on your victory!” the crowds shouted.
Pictures and videos of the celebrations showed more people wearing the green colours of Mousavi’s 2009 campaign than Rohani’s purple. Police stood by and even shared jokes with some people in the throng.
Others had an ironic take on the “Death to the Dictator!” chants of the huge 2009 protests, shouting “Thank-you Dictator!” for allowing a fair vote now.
(For an interactive timeline of Iran click on http://link.reuters.com/cas68t
For an interactive timeline on Iran’s nuclear programme, click on http://link.reuters.com/gad76r)
(Additional reporting by Yeganeh Torbati and Marcus George; Writing by Jon Hemming; Editing by Mark Heinrich)