Rouhani bags reelection, Tehran encourages engagement
“The message of our people has been very clearly expressed. The Iranian people have chosen the path of engagement with the world, far from extremism,” Mr Rouhani said in his victory speech
The reelection of President Hassan Rouhani last week is Tehran’s message to friends and foes alike for engagement and dialogue. The historic and massive turnout in the polls reflects Iran’s yearning for moderation, reform, trade, development and opening up.
After a fiercely contested election campaign, Hassan Rouhani finally won a sweeping endorsement from a vast majority of 80 million Iranian people as he had vowed to end Iran’s international isolation and bring reforms, freedoms and moderation at home.
The turnout in the election was high at 71 per cent — significantly above than recent British or US elections — and voting had to be extended by several hours on election night to accommodate the long lines at polling stations.
Rouhani claimed 23.5 million votes, while his hardline, conservative rival Ebrahim Raisi trailed with 15.8 million, after nearly three-quarters of the electorate cast their votes, Iran’s interior ministry said.
President Hassan Rouhani is seen as a centrist, pragmatist Iranian leader who was strongly backed by reformists and moderates in the polls. Due to his long career with successive Iranian governments, analysts term him a ‘regime insider’ and a ‘consummate pragmatist’. As former top security official, he has re-modeled himself as a champion of reform who promised opening up to the west and allowing more social freedoms.
His opponent, Ebrahim Raisi, was thought to have enjoyed the backing of the Revolutionary Guards, the judiciary and the clergy — powerful hardline forces at the regime’s heart. There was also speculation that Raisi was the favoured candidate of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian supreme leader, who made thinly veiled attacks on Mr Rouhani’s track record.
The landslide victory of Rouhani has protected the nuclear deal with world powers, which has been Rouhani’s major achievement to date. But Rouhani also has other achievements to his credit. He has also been wooing foreign investment in Iran as China has been his focus of late, following Beijing’s announcement of One Belt, One Road initiative and President Xi Jinping visit to Tehran last January.
Xi was the first international leader to head to Iran after trade restrictions were removed while he was also the first Chinese president to visit Iran after fourteen years. During the visit, China signed seventeen agreements with Iran for cooperation in areas including energy, trade, and industry. During Xi’s visit, the two countries also agreed to increase bilateral trade more than 10-fold to $600 billion in the next decade – welcome news for Iran’s youth who make over 60 percent of the total population.
Rouhani’s second term could also have longer-term implications for Iran’s future as experts say it can provide reformists a greater influence over the looming battle to choose a new supreme leader.
The election campaign was more fierce and tough than expected as Raisi, 56, a former judge who presumably had backing from the supreme leader, ran a populist election campaign accusing Rouhani of mismanaging the economy. Raisi also travelled to poor areas of Iran and held rallies promising more welfare benefits and jobs.
Raisi’s claims carried weight too. Following the successful nuclear deal with world powers and the removal of nuclear-related sanctions in 2016, there is no end to the sufferings of the Iranian nation. Increasing inflation, unemployment and economic logjam are major challenges for Hassan Rouhani.
Lingering unilateral US sanctions have kept foreign companies wary of investing, limiting the economic benefits so far. Till date though, China has dared to invest while some friendly nations including Pakistan have developed new banking channels to help boost bilateral trade with Iran.
Mr Rouhani, now entering his second term with a strong popular mandate to meet the aspirations of a young and urbanised population at home, faces lots of challenges in foreign policy from its adversaries in the region and beyond.
One of the major challenges Rouhani would face is the recent overtures by Saudi Arabian monarch, King Salman bin Abdelaziz, who recently amassed leaders and representatives of 55 Arab and Muslim countries in Riyadh.
The congregation, named as 2017 Riyadh summit, was a series of three summits held on 20-21 May 2017 on the occasion of the visit of United States President Donald Trump to Saudi Arabia, his first trip overseas. The summit included one bilateral meeting, between the United States and Saudi Arabia, and two multilateral meetings, one between the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the other with Arab and Muslim countries.
The US President Donald Trump, at the summit, vowed to embrace Tehran’s two regional enemies, Saudi Arabia and Israel. The summit coincided with Rouhani’s landslide win. The imagery was telling.
While Mr Trump unleashed a storm of anti-Iran rhetoric, millions of Iranians danced and sang in cities across the country celebrating Mr Rouhani’s victory — scenes that would have been anathema to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies.
On the occasion, Donald Trump also signed a $350 billion arms deal with the Saudi monarch – perhaps the biggest arms deal in world history. The transaction included tanks, combat ships, missile defence systems, radars, communications and cyber-security technology.
Iran, on the other hand, seeks the Russian S-300 air defence system, the delivery of which was delayed for years because of western pressure.
While Saudi monarchy plans to isolate Iran, Rouhani, soon after his victory, said Iran has chosen the “path of engagement with the world” and rejected isolation and extremism.
“The message of our people has been very clearly expressed. The Iranian people have chosen the path of engagement with the world, far from extremism,” Mr Rouhani said in his victory speech.
Rouhani warned that his country wanted “to live in peace and in friendship with the rest of the world” but it would “not accept any threat or humiliation”.
Despite threats and intimidation by Trump and his Arab-Israeli allies, Mr Rouhani is likely to push ahead with his country’s regional military alliance with Russia, Syria and Iraq. During Mr Rouhani’s term in office, Iran has become deeply involved in a fierce war against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq besides supporting Houthi rebels in Yemen and Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.
On the economic front, Rouhani would be encouraging European businesses to come to Iran. Reelection of Rouhani is also a tangible relief for Europe as many EU officials had expressed their fears that having both Donald Trump and the hawkish Mr Raisi in office would increase the likelihood of a military confrontation between Iran and the US.
“Iranians passionately took part in political life of their country. I congratulate President Hassan Rouhani for the strong mandate received,” said Federica Mogherini, the EU foreign policy chief.
Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian dictator whose regime receives significant military support from Iran, was one of the first leaders to congratulate Mr Rouhani. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, also sent congratulations.
On the international front, Iran will have to confront the more belligerent administration of President Trump, who has placed the nuclear deal under interagency review and recently imposed new sanctions on Iran for its ballistic missile program.
Still, Rouhani has pledged to continue to negotiate with the United States to persuade them to lift non-nuclear sanctions. Despite the tensions, Rouhani sees Iran as benefiting from the West and from foreign investment.
On the domestic front, Rouhani will strongly pursue progressive political reform. He has yet failed to secure the release of opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi, his wife Zahra Rahnavard and Mehdi Karroubi.
In June last year, seventy distinguished academics from North American universities had urged Hassan Rouhani to break his silence over the ongoing house arrests of the country’s opposition leaders.
The three critics have been confined to their homes since their movements were restricted without trial in February 2011. Mousavi and Karroubi were among the four presidential candidates in the 2009 vote, the disputed result of which gave former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term in office.
Though Iran enjoys great access to social media and the Internet, and reformist publications and Facebook pages flourished, the activists and journalists are still detained.
Nevertheless, while the resilient Iranians have voted Rouhani to an emphatic win, the challenges suggest a rocky path ahead for the moderate leader. It is hence unclear how much he will be able to achieve and deliver.
