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 […]
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. Read Here – Project Syndicate
The Saudis will be appalled that a (comparatively) reasonable Iranian has won a (comparatively) free election that almost none of the 50 dictators gathering to meet Trump in Riyadh would ever dare to hold Read Here – Independent
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. Read Here – Tehran Times
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. Read Here – The Atlantic
…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 […]
Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is one of the most unique players on Iran’s political stage — an unpredictable figure who is no stranger to political U-turns. On Feb. 11, he officially announced that he would not back any candidate in the May 19 presidential elections. Yet, Ahmadinejad, who was president from 2005 until 2013, has become one […]
A new and powerful figure has joined the list of candidates among Iranian conservatives for the May presidential election: Ebrahim Raisi, a senior cleric who has gradually risen through the ranks to assume powerful positions. Born in the holy city of Mashhad in northeast Iran — home to the shrine of the eighth Shiite imam […]
As election season approaches with the May presidential vote around the corner, there will be more discussions of this sort among Iranian political factions. Through Khatami’s call for unity in the face of Trump’s threats as well as Rouhani’s defiant speech on Feb. 10, the moderates and the Reformists are in essence pushing to the […]
As the faction most opposed to the government, Iran’s hard-liners have made it their goal to make Hassan Rouhani the first Iranian president not to be re-elected for a second term. In fact, this objective was sought since their loss of the executive branch back in 2013. Read Here – Al Monitor
looking beyond borders 