Ebrahim Raisi elected Iran's new president
"I congratulate the people on their choice."
TEHRAN (AFP) - Congratulations poured in for Iranian cleric Ebrahim Raisi on Saturday for winning presidential elections even before official results were announced.
Iran s outgoing President Hassan Rouhani said his successor had been elected in the previous day s vote, without naming the widely expected winner, Raisi.
"I congratulate the people on their choice," said Rouhani. "My official congratulations will come later, but we know who got enough votes in this election and who is elected today by the people."
The other two candidates -- Mohsen Rezai and Amirhossein Ghazizadeh-Hashemi -- explicitly congratulated Raisi.
"I congratulate ... Raisi, elected by the nation," Ghazizadeh-Hashemi said, quoted by Iranian media.
And Rezai tweeted that he hoped Raisi could build "a strong and popular government to solve the country s problems".
Former central bank governor Abdolnasser Hemmati also tweeted his congratulations to Raisi.
"Champion of the poor"
Dressed in a black turban and cleric’s coat, Iran’s Ebrahim Raisi casts himself as an austere and pious figure and an corruption-fighting champion of the poor.
On Saturday the 60-year-old was named the winner of the Islamic republic’s presidential election, set to take over from moderate Hassan Rouhani in August.
Critics charge the election was skewed in his favour as strong rivals were disqualified, but to his loyal supporters he is Iran’s best hope for standing up to the West and bringing relief from a deep economic crisis.
Raisi is not renowned for great charisma but, as head of the judiciary, has driven a popular campaign to prosecute corrupt officials.
In the election campaign he vowed to keep up the fight on graft, construct four million new homes for low-income families, and build ‘a government of the people for a strong Iran’.
Many Iranian media outlets see him as a possible successor to supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who turns 82 next month.
Raisi, whose black turban signifies direct descent from Islam’s Prophet Mohammed, holds the title of ‘hojatoleslam’ -- literally ‘proof of Islam’ -- one rank below that of ayatollah in the Shiite clerical hierarchy.
Like other candidates, he harshly criticised Rouhani’s camp after the 2015 nuclear deal was torpedoed by then US president Donald Trump, who reimposed punishing sanctions.
But, like Iranian political figures across the spectrum, Raisi supports efforts to revive the deal to bring relief from Iran’s painful economic crisis.
‘Uproot sedition’
His election win comes after he lost to Rouhani in 2017. This time, seven candidates were approved to run after many of the prominent figures were disqualified.
Raisi gathered support from traditional conservatives, who are close to the Shiite clergy and the influential merchant class.
He also sought to extend a hand beyond his traditional base, by pledging to defend “freedom of expression” and “the fundamental rights of all Iranian citizens”.
Raisi has also vowed to eradicate “corruption hotbeds” -- a theme he already pursued in his judicial role, through a spate of highly publicised corruption trials of senior state officials.
Even judges have not been spared by his much trumpeted anti-graft drive; several have been sentenced over the past year.
Raisi has also taken a hard line against protest groups. When the Green Movement in 2009 rallied against populist president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad winning a disputed second term, he was uncompromising.
“To those who speak of ‘Islamic compassion and forgiveness’, we respond: we will continue to confront the rioters until the end and we will uproot this sedition,” he said.
