Hassan Rouhani wins Iran's

presidential election
Final results show incumbent president
emphatically beating rival Ebrahim Raisi to
extend his time in office.
20 May 2017

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Iran's reformist President Hassan Rouhani has decisively won the
country's presidential election, according to official results, fending off
a challenge by principlist rival Ebrahim Raisi.

With all of votes in Friday's poll counted, Rouhani was re-elected with
57 percent, Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmanifazli said on Saturday.

"Of some 41.2 million total votes cast, Rouhani got 23.5 ... and won the
election," Rahmanifazli said in remarks carried live by state TV.

PROFILE: Iran's President Hassan Rouhani

Raisi, Rouhani's closest rival, got 15.8 million votes, he added.

A big turnout on Friday led to the vote being extended by several hours
to deal with long queues.

Campaign pledges
 Who is Hassan Rouhani?
▪ Born in 1948 in Sorkheh in northern Iran and began
studying religion at an early age

▪ Began political career in 1960s by following the exiled leader

of the Islamic movement Ayatollah Khomeini

▪ Fled Iran in 1977 after publicly declaring Khomeini an

"imam"

▪ Returned to Iran after the 1979 revolution and served as the

secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council from
1989 to 2005

▪ Earned the nickname the "diplomatic sheikh" owing to his

clerical background and role as Iran's chief nuclear
negotiator from 2003 to 2005

▪ Sworn in as president on August 4, 2013

▪ During his term, Iran reached a landmark deal in 2015 to

curb its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief

The election was seen by many as a verdict on Rouhani's policy of

opening up Iran to the world and his efforts to rebuild its stagnant
economy.

Rouhani swept into office four years ago on a promise to reduce Iran's
international isolation.

Friday's poll was the first since he negotiated a historic deal with world
powers in 2015 to curb the country's nuclear programme in exchange
for sanctions relief.

In the campaign trail, Rouhani sought to frame the vote as a choice

between greater civil liberties and "extremism", criticising the
continued arrest of reformist leaders and activists.

Raisi, for his part, accused Rouhani of mismanaging the economy

and positioned himself as a defender of the poor, calling for a much
tougher line with the West.
Political commentator Mostafa Khoshcheshm said that in contrast to
the 2013 election campaign, when Rouhani spoke about the removal of
sanctions and the improvement of the economy, this time his message
was different.

"He resorted to other campaign slogans, like [calling for] social and
political freedom, and he pushed the boundaries in order to gather
public support, especially in large cities," Khoshcheshm told Al
Jazeera.

"If he has secured this result, it's because of the large cities and the
middle-class society living there - they have voted for him and made
him a president and they expect him to do his promises."

Obstacles ahead
Rouhani's re-election is likely to safeguard the 2015 agreement, under
which most international sanctions have been lifted in return for Iran
curbing its nuclear programme.

Foreign policy plays major role in

Iran election

Rouhani has vowed to work towards removing the remaining non-

nuclear sanctions, but critics argue that will be hard with Donald
Trump as US president. Trump has repeatedly described it as "one of
the worst deals ever signed", although his administration re-authorised
waivers from sanctions this week.

Rouhani is also expected to face the same restrictions that prevented

him from delivering substantial social change in his first term.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has veto power over all
policies and ultimate control of the security forces, while Rouhani has
been unable to secure the release of reformist leaders from house
arrest.

Al Jazeera's Jonah Hull, reporting from Iran's capital, Tehran, said that
Rouhani, during an "increasingly acrimonious election campaign,
alienated a lot of Iran's significant state institutions who may be in no
mood to cooperate with him going forward".
Slow pace of change
While the nuclear deal was at the forefront of the election, the
campaign was dominated by the issues of poverty and unemployment.

Rouhani has brought inflation down from around 40 percent when he

took over in 2013, but prices are still rising by more than seven percent
a year.

OPINION: Iran's battleground - Supreme Leader vs President

Oil sales have rebounded since the nuclear deal took effect in January
2016, but growth in the rest of the economy has been limited, leaving
unemployment at 12.5 percent overall - close to 30 percent for the
young - and many more are underemployed or struggling to get by.

"Rouhani now gets his second term, and will be able to continue the
work that he started in his first four-year term trying to reform
Iran," Hull said.

"And moving on, crucially, from the nuclear deal to try and bring much
more economic progress to satisfy the people who have found
themselves extremely disappointed with the very slow pace of change
since that agreement was signed."