Rouhani is obviously not the same president-elect as he was in 2013. He now appears to be ready to draw his own road map in front of both friends and foes — including Khamenei. All of Rouhani’s men were at the ceremony, as were his rivals, from his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to his most recent conservative presidential competitor, Ebrahim Raisi.
Donald Trump and Narendra Modi both rose to power as the result of popular rage against longstanding political elites. Corruption, insider politicking, and common people’s perceived lack of access to power were prominent themes in both campaigns. Both campaigns fed, as well, on the real distress of the have-nots in our respective societies.
Last year’s Brexit vote followed by the election of Donald Trump resulted in the idea that populism was sweeping the West. Elections were scheduled in 2017 for Austria, the Netherlands, France, and Germany, leading to fears among the establishment in those countries that the center-left-center-right consensus that had dominated politics for much of the past half century was in peril. The results so far have brought relief to the establishment in those countries.
Vladimir Putin has been such a dominant figure in international relations since coming to power in 1999 that it’s hard to imagine a world without him. Moreover, Russia is so large — spanning 11 time zones — and so diverse in ethnic and socioeconomic terms, that’s it’s equally difficult to foresee Russian reaction to the absence of someone who has really functioned much like the czars of old. But nothing is eternal, not even in Mother Russia, so sooner or later, things will change.
Theresa May has vowed to continue as prime minister after agreeing what was dubbed an “Irish Bailout” from the Democratic Unionist Party. Speaking in Downing Street, after a 20-minute meeting with the Queen, a grim-faced Ms May announced she had the backing of the DUP to provide the “certainty” the country needed.
Fired FBI Director James Comey levelled a series of damaging accusations against the president of the United States, testifying that Donald Trump pressured him to close a probe into a top former aide, fired him in an attempt to change the course of the larger Russia probe, and then launched a campaign of “lies” to discredit him.
The landslide re-election of Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, reflects the by now familiar pattern of continuity and change that has characterised Iran’s major elections over the last two decades. But it also stands out in one key way: Rouhani has remained popular despite pursuing painful macroeconomic stabilisation.
Hassan Rouhani, who represented moderates and reformers in the Iranian presidential campaign, won 23.5 million (or 57 percent) of the total vote, while his closest rival, Ebrahim Raisi, received 15.7 million (38.5 percent), the Interior Ministry announced.
On Friday, Iranians will vote for their next president. The race has essentially boiled down to a choice between a centrist and a hardline conservative—the incumbent, Hassan Rouhani, and Ibrahim Raisi, the custodian of the shrine of Imam Reza in Mashad. A clear choice appears to be emerging.
…because Khamenei personifies the establishment, it is not his endorsement that matters, but that of respected antiestablishment figures who despite their political marginalisation still have unmatched reach within Iran’s society. Currently, that person is Khatami, who has managed to make use of social media to circumvent the government’s media blackout of him dating back to 2009.
