Washington Examiner, May 20, 2017— Rouhani won a second four-year term in Iran’s election, which took place Friday.
With more than 99 percent of ballots counted, the Associated Press reported Saturday that Rouhani received 57 percent of the vote. His closest competitor, Ebrahim Raisi, who is described as a hard-liner, got 38 percent of the vote in the four-man contest.
Activists are skeptical of the Iranian election process, and say that no matter what happens it is Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who truly controls the country.
Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, an Iranian dissident group, condemned what she described as a “sham” presidential election but also contends that Khamenei’s failure to manipulate the election “to bring Raisi out of the ballot box and make the regime monolithic is a heavy blow for him and a sign of the regime’s approaching demise.”
“Rouhani’s second term would only entail growing crisis and a more intense power struggle,” said Rajavi. “Crisis has precipitated at the leadership level of the religious fascism and would continue until the downfall of the regime of the velayat-e faqih (absolute rule of clergy). The heightening power struggle is a reflection of the regime’s strategic failure in resolving the most pressing social problems and growing discontent.”
