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Iran elects reformer?

Puppycow

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Rohani Clinches Iran Presidency in Surprise Victory

Hassan Rohani, who criticized government intervention in Iranian lives and pledged dialogue with the world, won the nation’s presidency with enough backing to avoid a second-round vote.

Residents of Tehran celebrated into the night after it was announced yesterday that Rohani won 50.7 percent of the 37 million votes counted. Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf was second with 16.6 percent, according to Interior Ministry figures. Nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and former Revolutionary Guards commander Mohsen Rezai followed. Rohani takes office in August.

. . .

Historic Significance

Rohani’s win suggests a “shift of historic significance in Iran,” wrote Suzanne Maloney, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy in Washington, in a blog after the vote-counting began. “Rohani is an ideal candidate to spearhead a new initiative to wrest Iran from its debilitating battle with the international community over the nuclear issue.”
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He's not really a reformer (the only actual reformist candidate, Mohammad Reza Aref, dropped out before the election). But he did get the backing of Khatami (the de-facto leader of the reformist faction) and Rafsanjani, and beat out the four Khamenei loyalist (ie, hardliner) candidates.
 
Puppycow said:
Does this mean the sanctions worked?

Apparently Iran's economy is in really bad shape due to the sanctions.
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No, it means the part of the Iranian system which is democratic works. Out of the preselected candidates the one nobody really had on the list through the fog of prejudices won.

Hopefully it will provide a bit of goodwill. The hardliners in "the West" will likely miss Ahmadinnerjacket.
 
If he's any kind of reformer then great.

What I expect to see if he is a reformer is for him to be written off as having a powerless role and it being argued that, in fact, it is the Supreme Leader who is the real power of Iran. This was pretty much said about Khatami. Of course, the tune changed when Ahmadinejad came to power and he made all the right kind of "barking-mad Islamist" noises. However, the dog that didn't bark was the fact that we heard almost nothing about him in his second term. Presumably if he couldn't say anything crazy he didn't say anything at all. Or at least nothing worth reporting.
 
angrysoba said:
If he's any kind of reformer then great.

What I expect to see if he is a reformer is for him to be written off as having a powerless role and it being argued that, in fact, it is the Supreme Leader who is the real power of Iran. This was pretty much said about Khatami. Of course, the tune changed when Ahmadinejad came to power and he made all the right kind of "barking-mad Islamist" noises. However, the dog that didn't bark was the fact that we heard almost nothing about him in his second term. Presumably if he couldn't say anything crazy he didn't say anything at all. Or at least nothing worth reporting.
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Khamenei and Ahmadinejad had a falling out. A serious falling out...not only was Ahmadinejad basically shut out by the Supreme Leader, Ahmadinejad's protege, who he was grooming to become president after he left office, was accused of sorcery and had his candidacy for this election rejected by the Guardian Council.

Rohani was actually the chief nuclear negotiator for Iran under Khatami, before the hardline shift represented by Ahmadinejad's election (he actually resigned from that position after clashes with Ahmadinejad over nuclear policy shortly after Ahmadinejad's first election). So this could represent a signal by Khamenei that he's willing to return to the earlier, less hardline position on nuclear technology that preceded Ahmadinejad's election and crazy rhetoric.

Rohani's backing by Khatami's reformists and his statements about wanting to loosen up social restrictions and work more towards gender equality are also an encouraging sign, but there may be a limit to what Khamenei is willing to allow on that front. Still, it really seems like, with this current election, Iran is trying to reset to the way things were before Ahmadinejad's noisy reign of crazy during the last eight years.
 
Virus said:
Khamenei's facebook:

US controlled by Jews.

Classic projection. Since Iranian elections are controlled by Khamenei.
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None of the Khamenei-backed candidates won, though. The Khatami-backed candidate did.

(And it still weirds me out that the theocratic ruler of the Islamic Republic of Iran has a Facebook page.)
 
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ANTPogo said:
Khamenei and Ahmadinejad had a falling out. A serious falling out...not only was Ahmadinejad basically shut out by the Supreme Leader, Ahmadinejad's protege, who he was grooming to become president after he left office, was accused of sorcery and had his candidacy for this election rejected by the Guardian Council.

Rohani was actually the chief nuclear negotiator for Iran under Khatami, before the hardline shift represented by Ahmadinejad's election (he actually resigned from that position after clashes with Ahmadinejad over nuclear policy shortly after Ahmadinejad's first election). So this could represent a signal by Khamenei that he's willing to return to the earlier, less hardline position on nuclear technology that preceded Ahmadinejad's election and crazy rhetoric.

Rohani's backing by Khatami's reformists and his statements about wanting to loosen up social restrictions and work more towards gender equality are also an encouraging sign, but there may be a limit to what Khamenei is willing to allow on that front. Still, it really seems like, with this current election, Iran is trying to reset to the way things were before Ahmadinejad's noisy reign of crazy during the last eight years.
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It's possible that my memory is faulty, but isn't one of the things that Ahmadinejad and Khameinei fell out over the fact that Ahmadinejad appointed a foreign minister who said he would like to negotiate a peace settlement with Israel. Or that Iran could be friends with any nation, even Israel, leading to Khameinei's intervention?
 
ANTPogo said:
He's not really a reformer......
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I guess time will tell on that. Over here, the BBC described him as having "played a blinder".....by being a reformer but disguising this until the last few days of the election, and then on showing his hand at a major televised event. The Beeb are also saying that even the hardliners realise that reform is inevitable, if only to remove the crippling sanctions regime, so it will be interesting to see how the potential power struggles unfold

Mike
 
ANTPogo said:
None of the Khamenei-backed candidates won, though. The Khatami-backed candidate did.

(And it still weirds me out that the theocratic ruler of the Islamic Republic of Iran has a Facebook page.)
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And a Twitter account ... probably a blog ... Iranians are early adapters
 
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I am deliberately not hoping but can't resist reading tea leaves in Iran.

Rohani last week skipped the 25th anniversary commemoration at the tomb of Khomeini to attend a funeral of a reformist clergyman in Isfahan.

At that funeral, some people reportedly had "Death to the Dictator" signs - which is aimed at Khamenei, but I doubt they were talking about literal death.

At that affair or soon after Rohani said (paraphrase) "I will say something vague - this will not be like 2009," to big cheers. He also said something about gender equality and sanctions.

Khamenei, in urging high election turnout, said something like "even if they do not support the regime they should vote for their nation."

With 6 hard-liners and one reformer running (after Aref dropped out) Khamenei most certainly knew that Rohani would likely at least force a runoff if not an outright victory.

I got the vibe that there was no way he would mess with the election results, knowing the regime's credibility is at stake.

Khamenei is apparently a savvy political operator.

Rohani was behind Iran's commitment to suspend uranium enrichment in 2003.

Rohani has powerful allies within the regime and along the edges; also seems pretty charismatic (though Ahmadinejad was too, in his own strange way).

I do not know what it all adds up to.
 
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Minoosh said:
Thanks for that link.

I'm not sure how much of an upset it was. The result must be completely palatable to Khamenei or it would not have happened. Iran I think is realizing they've painted themselves into a corner.
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It's only an upset in the sense that the majority of the people got to vote for something like what they actually want for a change. The previous elections have not been representative of the popular vote at all.
 
ANTPogo said:
Khamenei and Ahmadinejad had a falling out. A serious falling out...not only was Ahmadinejad basically shut out by the Supreme Leader, Ahmadinejad's protege, who he was grooming to become president after he left office, was accused of sorcery and had his candidacy for this election rejected by the Guardian Council.

Rohani was actually the chief nuclear negotiator for Iran under Khatami, before the hardline shift represented by Ahmadinejad's election (he actually resigned from that position after clashes with Ahmadinejad over nuclear policy shortly after Ahmadinejad's first election). So this could represent a signal by Khamenei that he's willing to return to the earlier, less hardline position on nuclear technology that preceded Ahmadinejad's election and crazy rhetoric.

Rohani's backing by Khatami's reformists and his statements about wanting to loosen up social restrictions and work more towards gender equality are also an encouraging sign, but there may be a limit to what Khamenei is willing to allow on that front. Still, it really seems like, with this current election, Iran is trying to reset to the way things were before Ahmadinejad's noisy reign of crazy during the last eight years.
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Makes one wonder what Ahmadinejad did. Did he smoke crack in the old poop's boyhood home in Qom?

I highlighted that sentence to let it sink in for anybody who may be new to Iranian politics.
 
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a_unique_person said:
It's only an upset in the sense that the majority of the people got to vote for something like what they actually want for a change. The previous elections have not been representative of the popular vote at all.
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I think the election(s) of Mohammad Khatami did reflect the popular vote, and maybe the first election of Ahmadinejad. His re-election is when large numbers of Iranians suspected fraud.

So far Rohani does seem to be a breath of fresh air.

You just never know with that place.

ETA:
ANTPogo:
Ahmadinejad's protege, who he was grooming to become president after he left office, was accused of sorcery and had his candidacy for this election rejected by the Guardian Council.
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Sounds whacked but I wouldn't automatically judge it by Western standards. It sounds like an excuse to harass the Ahmadinejad camp. There were arrests within his cohort; I don't know what became of them.

Sometimes I think the regime is trying to be confusing, other times I wonder if the right hand knows what the left is doing. Rafsanjahi, ex-president (and barred candidate this round), is an intriguing character. He's been around forever and I suspect he can pull strings in the IRI.
 
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Polaris said:
Makes one wonder what Ahmadinejad did. Did he smoke crack in the old poop's boyhood home in Qom?
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This is a pretty thorough explanation. In short, Ahmadinejad is a hardline conservative, but also an ambitious and independent-minded one. He basically wanted to do things his own way, instead of being Khamenei's catspaw, and there was a bit of a struggle over whose supporters got to be placed in important government positions. There were also rumors that there was more of a theological rift as well, since Khameni is an old-school Veliyatist Usuli Twelver Shia Muslim closely adhering the Islam of his mentor Khomeini, while Ahmadinejad is purportedly a member of a suppressed anti-Veliyatist vaguely-heretical apocalyptic/messianic offshoot sect of Twelver Shia Islam called the Hojjatieh.

Anyway, Foreign Affairs has a piece up about why Khamenei let Rohani win.
 
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