President Hassan Rouhani handily won re-election in what amounts to a victory for the Shiite nation’s reformist camp and a sign that citizens favor fruitful engagement with the outside world.
“I humbly bow my head down to you,” Rouhani said to his people in a tweet translated from Farsi. “I will remain loyal to my promise to you.”
Rouhani, who defeated his conservative challenger Ebrahim Raisi in the Friday elections, garnered 57% of the vote, Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said. He’ll serve another four years in the post.
“This hope with which you’ve entrusted me, I do feel the weight of this responsibility,” Rouhani said in a televised address Saturday, “and I do pray to God to be a worthy carrier of your hopes and your dreams.”
In his remarks, he passed along his gratitude to his “good dear and close friend” former President Mohammed Khatami, a reformist figure who is popular among more liberal Iranians. Rouhani also remembered fondly the late statesman Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as a man of “reconstruction and progress.”
“His place among us in this morning of victory is quite empty,” Rouhani said of Rafsanjani.
Rouhani, a moderate, was a key architect of the 2015 nuclear deal with the United States, the European Union and other partners, and his first term was marked by an emergent international outreach.
The agreement has been controversial in both the United States and Iran, and it emerged as a top campaign issue, with the election seen in part as a referendum on the deal.
The victory reverberated in seats of power across the globe, on the Iranian streets and at the highest level of Iranian power. Among the first world leaders to issue congratulations to Rouhani were Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was traveling in Saudi Arabia with President Donald Trump, said the United States hopes Rouhani will end Iran’s destabilization campaign in the region.
Tillerson also said he hopes Rouhani will end Iran’s ballistic missile tests and restore the rights of free speech and assembly to Iran’s citizens.
“If Rouhani wanted to change Iran’s relationship with the rest of the world, that’s what we would hope he would do,” he told reporters in Riyadh.
In parts of Tehran, traffic stood still Saturday night as revelers honked horns and waved purple balloons to celebrate Rouhani’s victory.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, communicating in a series of tweets, lauded the “high turnout” and called it “glorious and historic” for Iranian elections.
More than 40 million Iranian voters flocked to polling stations Friday, according to the head of Iran’s Interior Ministry State Elections Committee. More than 70% of eligible voters cast ballots
“A new record was set,” he said, referring to presidential election turnout, and noted that the result “showed increasing progress of Iranian nation.”
The victor of the elections were the Iranian people and the Islamic Republic establishment, “who despite enemy’s efforts won the great nation’s trust,” Khamenei said.
Raisi — who got 38% of the vote — had been widely seen as Khamenei’s preferred candidate. But Rouhani had history and hope on his side. No sitting president has failed to win a second term since 1981.
“I voted for Mr. Rouhani,” said Mostafa, a voter in Tehran who spoke to CNN. “And I am proud of him because he showed all of the world we are a good country. Our goal is peace for our world. And I am proud of my President.”
Rouhani’s engagement with the outside world — in spite of economic sanctions and visa restrictions — resonated with voters, especially those in affluent areas
Source » cnn