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Page added on June 15, 2013
Hassan Rouhani wins Iran presidential election
Reformist-backed cleric Hassan Rouhani has won Iran’s presidential election, securing just over 50% of the vote and so avoiding the need for a run-off.
Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf was well behind in second place.
Turnout was estimated at 72.2% among the 50 million Iranians who were eligible to vote to choose a successor to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was ineligible to stand again.
Mr Rouhani has pledged greater detente and engagement with world powers.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is scheduled to ratify the vote on 3 August. The new president will then take the oath in parliament.
‘Best candidate’
Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar announced that Mr Rouhani had won 18,613,329 of the 36,704,156 votes cast. This represented 50.71% of the vote.
Mr Qalibaf won 6,077,292 votes to take second place (16.56%).
Saeed Jalili came third and Mohsen Rezai fourth.
Mr Najjar said that any presidential candidates unhappy with the results would have three days to lodge complaints to the Guardian Council.
The winning candidate needed more than 50% of all ballots cast, including invalid ones, to avoid a run-off.
Voting had been extended by five hours on Friday evening to allow more people to cast their ballots.
Although all six candidates were seen as conservatives, analysts say Mr Rouhani – a 64-year-old cleric often described as “moderate” who has held several parliamentary posts and served as chief nuclear negotiator – has been reaching out to reformists in recent days.
The surge of support for him came after Mohammad Reza Aref, the only reformist candidate in the race, announced on Tuesday that he was withdrawing on the advice of pro-reform ex-President Mohammad Khatami.
Mr Rouhani thus went into polling day with the endorsement of two ex-presidents – Mr Khatami and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was disqualified from the race by the powerful Guardian Council, a 12-member body of theologians and jurists.
One of Mr Rouhani’s main pledges was to try to ease international sanctions imposed on Iran over its nuclear programme.
Iran has been suffering economic hardship, with rising unemployment, a devalued currency and soaring inflation.
The hardline candidates included Mr Qalibaf – who is seen as a pragmatic conservative – and nuclear negotiator Mr Jalili – who is said to be very close to Ayatollah Khamenei.
The other three candidates were Mr Rezai, a former head of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, and former Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Gharazi.
One eligible voter, Mahdi, a software developer from Mashhad said he had not cast a ballot as he was “against the Islamic Republic”.
But he added: “Having said that, I hope Rouhani wins, because he is the best candidate… Rouhani won’t change things dramatically, he will probably only make things slightly better.”
‘Intimidation’
After the last presidential election in June 2009, millions of Iranians took to the streets to demand a rerun, when the supreme leader dismissed claims by the three defeated candidates of widespread fraud.
Two of them, former Prime Minister Mir Hussein Mousavi and senior cleric Mehdi Karroubi, became leaders of a nationwide opposition known as the Green Movement, after its signature colour.
They were placed under house arrested in February 2011 when they applied to stage a protest in support of the anti-government uprisings which were sweeping the Arab world. They are still being detained.
No foreign observers monitored this year’s election and there have also been concerns that media coverage in the run-up has been unfair.
Many reformist newspapers have been shut down, access to the internet and foreign broadcasters has been restricted, and journalists have been detained.
10 Comments on "Hassan Rouhani wins Iran presidential election"
DC on Sat, 15th Jun 2013 6:14 pm
Naturally, Iran’s elections are always rife with fraud, rigging, and other nefarious deeds when the western media talks about them. But our own rigged, corporate controlled ‘elections’ are pure as the driven snow. First past the post voting system, which effectively exclude smaller parties even when they have substantial support, which the ever reactionary British STILL haven’t seen fit to reform, is one of the most anti-democratic and fraudulent voting schemes ever devised. Yet its enduring popularity, among the ruling parties in the UK\US\CAN\AUS is odd isnt it?
Britain’s electoral system is full of fraud itself-the BBC has little cause to paint Iran this way, besides the need to smear Iran at every turn, justified or not.
And this?
Q/Iran has been suffering economic hardship, with rising unemployment, a devalued currency and soaring inflation.
Lets see what we can do with it…
Britain has been suffering economic hardship, with rising unemployment, a devalued currency and soaring inflation.
Hey! that works too, even better, because its just as true. Odd that the BBC spends so much time dissing the legitimacy of Iran’s elections, yets utterly omits Iran’s economic issues are largely related to the US\UK economic war being waged against those people.
I was wondering, is ‘pro-reformist’ code for ‘On Washingtons’ payroll? What exactly does this guy want to reform? Iran has shown plenty of willingness to ‘engage’ the world, in fact they hosted this:
http://rt.com/news/non-aligned-movement-summit-tehran-583/
Opps, that meeting enraged the US\UK, and the western ‘press’ mostly ignored or belittled it.
What Iran is NOT interested in, is allowing the US to dictate what amounts to, surrender terms to the US corporate war-machine. That, according to the ‘respectable’ BBC, is what constitutes unwillingness to engage I guess.
Plantagenet on Sat, 15th Jun 2013 6:49 pm
The Mullahs in Iran pre-screened the candidates so that only Islamist candidates were allowed to run in the election.
The whole idea that this guy is pro-western or a reformer is silly.
Arthur on Sat, 15th Jun 2013 11:33 pm
Poor neocons, that is the last thing they needed: an Iranian president willing to compromise, where all what these people are looking for is a pretext for war. It is not fair, boohoo!
Plantagenet on Sat, 15th Jun 2013 11:43 pm
Arthur is crying over a fantasy. Lets face facts:
(1) Iran is a theocracy.
(2) The Mullahs pre-selected the candidates who were allowed to run in the Iranian elections.
(3) EVERY SINGLE CANDIDATE who was selected by the Mullahs to run was selected precisely because he backs the policies of the Mullahs.
DC on Sun, 16th Jun 2013 4:01 am
Lets face facts
(1) The US is plutocracy
(2) The 1% pre-select the (2) Candidates from the only 2 parties allowed to run in US ‘elections’.
(3) EVERY SINGLE CANDIDATE that was selected by the 1% was selected precisely because he backs the policies of the US Oil\War Machine.
Yea, that whole ‘they’ are not ‘democratic’ enough for me cuts both ways doesn’t it? Especially when the other party is the US of Endless War and its make-believe democracy. So *who* some been monitoring GLOBAL calls mails and communication, friend or foe, heads of state and private citizens alike since the end of WWII? Not to mention widespread electoral fraud and manipulation?
A) Iran
B) The United States
Bonus question.
Which gov’t Infringes on the rights of amerikan citizens, not to mention everyones else in the worlds through mass electronic surveillance of all media with a world-wide\domestic network of electronic listening posts and networks and routine sting operations by state intelligence agencies.
(Pick one)
A) Iran
B) The United States
BillT on Sun, 16th Jun 2013 5:31 am
Thanks DC, you covered it all and better than I would have. The US is the most corrupt government in the world. We are becoming one huge Nazi type country.
Arthur on Sun, 16th Jun 2013 8:41 am
“We are becoming one huge Nazi type country.”
Make that the USSR. The Nazis were nationalists, merely concerned with getting all Germans back in one state, where the Soviets wanted to conquer the entire world. Since 1933 the US government was a big fan of the USSR… because it had the same intentions: globalism. Unlike the Nazis and like the Bolsheviks, the US government does not care about race, an obvious consequence of globalism. But the main reason why the US will eventually become the next USSR is because it is ruled by exactly the same minority that terrorised Russia. That minority never had a chance in Europe, except for Britain. The US is somewhere between Europa and Russia in its potential to resist this minority. Until 1800 the US was much like Europe in this respect and had a population worthy of the Constitution, a document for a truely free people. But after 1800 the influx from eastern Europe began and quit a lot of ‘Al Bundy’s’ entered the US… as well as said minority, that captured the FED in 1913 and managed to manouver the US into war in exchange for Palestine. In 1933 they owned the Roosevelt government completely and started immediately to work towards an alliance with Stalin and together they conspired to rape Europe and divide the loot between them in 1945, greatly helped by the best politician jewish money can buy: Churchill, who was responsible for getting the war started in Europe (war garantee for Poland). After the death of Roosevelt, McCarthy and the Kennedy clan were the last serious oppostion against the minority, but JFK was wasted on orders or Ben Gurion, with Yitzak Rabin puling the trigger. Their ally Johnson became president without elections and he opened the flood gate for third world immigration, marking the beginning of the kosher organized slow death of white America, that will be completed by the beginning of the next decade. Euro-America has only one line of defense left: the Constitution and armed citizens as a consequence of that glorious document. But the minority organized 9/11 to kill that document, resulting in the Patriot Act and unlimited NSA surveillance.
The Nazis were a defense mechanism against an immanent bolshevik takeover of Germany, organized by a consolidated USSR (comintern). The Germans as a people were smart enough to understand the nature of the threat. The open question now is: do the Euro-Americans have it to resist becoming the next USSR?
Arthur on Sun, 16th Jun 2013 10:22 am
Plant, democracy does not really exist. Real democracy would mean that the population gets a real say about major decisions, like going to war, joining the euro, the adoption of the EU constitution, energy future, etc., but that is nowhere the case, except for maybe Switzerland, where the population is regularly invited to go to the market place and raise hands on all sorts of issues. Nothing like that is the case in the US, with it’s 153 year old two party system, both wings of which will never challenge the power of Wallstreet, media moguls and mililtary-industrial complex. In Europe the situation is a little bit better, because we have a multi-party system, that makes it much easier than in Anglosphere to ‘break in’ the existing power structure, witnessing the parties like the Green party in Germany on the left and Front National, OVP, PVV, Vlaams Belang, UKIP, Jobbik, Golden Dawn, etc. on the right. In the US outsiders like Ron Paul never really have a chance, the political system is closed not unlike that in North-Korea (but there is still freedom of speech in the US, a huge difference with North-Korea, where posts like these would not be possible without severe repercussions). The difference is that the media makes sure that an illusion of democracy is created:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPtqoU-2Bz4
It does not really matter who wins, after the election, the kosher dominated forces behind the scenes determine the policy of the US and nobody else and certainly not the sheeple.
BillT on Mon, 17th Jun 2013 1:49 am
Sorry Arthur, someone who is a dictatorship is not a free country by any means. Ask the Jews. Ask the French, etc. Germany was the poster child for bad government.
Russia was not a saint, but the US leads in innocent lives taken by a long shot! Many millions since WW2. Most every war or ‘police action’ since WW2 was US instigated. The CIA has been overthrowing even elected officials in democracies when they felt like doing it, and usually at the cost of many thousands of civilian lives.
There has been no country that could threaten the US since WW2. Even the USSR knew that they couldn’t win a war with the US. So, all of those wars were for $$$. The Military Industrial Complex was addicted to the huge profits of war and couldn’t stand down. Now they want to rule the world.
Arthur on Mon, 17th Jun 2013 6:37 am
“Sorry Arthur, someone who is a dictatorship is not a free country by any means. Ask the Jews. Ask the French, etc. Germany was the poster child for bad government.”
I am not going to defend all the actions of the Nazis, but I do attack the current modern position of total demonization, which is nothing but selfserving BS of the victorious allies.
Bad government? The Germans were loyal until the very bitter end and for good reason. Any idea of the state of Germany in 1933 as a consequence of the post Bersailles looting by the British and French, where the Germans were forced to eat their wallpaper? Within six years the country was on its legs again, had a modest prosperity and national pride restored. The admiration for Hitler was international, even in Britain. My own grandfather, who during the war was in the resistance, was a great admirer of Hitler before the war.
Jews. Poor Jews, right. Any idea what these people had done to Russia? And Germany was next on the Bolshevik todo list. National-socialism was the only way to block the Moscow supported bolsheviks. And the USSR would not have existed without support from wealthy American jews in the first place in 1917 and beyond. And the first act of the Roosevelt government was to diplomatically recognize that human slaughterhouse USSR, something no European government would dream of doing.
And what about the French? After 1907 they acted like Britains sidekick. Britain and France were like jealous children because they were eclipsed on world markets by Made in Germany. And that is why these two conspired with the Russians to destroy Germany and they almost lost the war they had started themselves, were it not for the jews who brought their US in the war, making the desaster complete for the Germans.