Shock as Iran Elects Hardline President

His admirers hail him as Iran’s Robin Hood, his critics a religious extremist. But yesterday Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became the president elect of Iran, basking in an electoral landslide few had foreseen and which put Islamic hardliners firmly in control.

Government figures showed more than 17 million votes for Ahmadinejad, 49, the blacksmith’s son who has been mayor of Tehran since 2003, compared with around 10 million for Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president and favourite throughout the campaign who had gained the reluctant backing of the beleaguered reformist movement.

Charges of vote-rigging and other violations, which marred his surprise second-place showing in the election’s first round and resurfaced during Friday’s runoff, began to fade as Iranians absorbed a political earthquake that promises a re-assertion of Islamic values in Iran and a return to confrontation with the West.
The Observer