US-sanctioned judge Ebrahim Raisi named new Iran president
Ebrahim Raisi, 60, takes over from Hassan Rouhani in August as Iran seeks to salvage its tattered nuclear deal with major powers and free itself from punishing US sanctions that have driven a sharp economic downturn.
Iran’s ultraconservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi won 62 percent of the presidential election votes counted so far, officials said Saturday after Raisi’s rivals conceded defeat.
Raisi won more than 17.8 million votes out of 28.6 million ballots counted, far ahead of the second-placed candidate Mohsen Rezai, who won 3.3 million votes, election office chairman Jamal Orf said on state television after Friday’s vote.
The official said in televised remarks that Raisi had so far won 17.8 million votes. The official said more than 28 million
Iranians out of 59 million eligible voters had cast ballots.
Congratulations poured in for Raisi on Saturday for winning presidential elections even before official results were announced.
Iran’s outgoing moderate President Hassan Rouhani said earlier his successor had been elected in the previous day’s vote.
“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 ultraconservative 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”.
The only reformist in the race, former central bank governor Abdolnasser Hemmati, also tweeted his congratulations to Raisi.
