Raisi’s victory secures control of Iran’s hardliners

When Ebrahim Raisi confronted the Iranian presidency in 2017, the dark conservative clergy were badly lost, opening up to a country that did not win the voters who had hoped for a nuclear deal in the republic.

Four years later, the fall of the 2015 agreement signed by Iran with the world powers, the closure of the economic crisis caused by US sanctions, the desperate voters and the decision to make the regime tough in office paved the way for him. electoral victory with 62 percent of the vote.

For many inside and outside the Republic, his victory has traces of a pyrrhic victory.

More than half of voters chose not to cast a vote described by reformers as a rare act of civil disobedience. The turnout at 48.8 percent was the lowest in the history of the Islamic republic, with 3.7 million people choosing to ruin the ballot boxes rather than vote for Raisi’s rivals.

“The message of the election is this: the dissident faction is much bigger than Raisi’s supporters,” said reformist activist Hossein Yazdi.

Many who stayed away from the polling stations believed that the result was pre-determined after the authorities prevented them from selecting the main reformist candidates. It was widely believed that Raisi, the head of the judiciary, was the leader of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the elections were held hard for almost a decade to regain control of all major branches of the state.

Analysts say Raisi’s victory has boosted 82-year-old Khamenei’s chances of becoming the top leader in his death. But only if it navigates the challenges it inherits is a polarized society vulnerable to the economy and unrest plagued by sanctions and coronavirus.

His supporters hope that during the second and final term of President Hassan Rouhani, which ends in August, he will be able to end the fighting between the factions that destroyed the regime. Within the theocratic system of the Union, it has competing centers of power and smooth succession is Khamenei’s priorities. These goals have become more urgent, as the republic has endured the most turbulent times since the 1980s Iran-Iraq war.

“One nation, one group, one goal” was one of Raisi’s election slogans.

“I believe in Raisi that he agrees with the leadership at 100 percent,” said one inside the regime. “Parliament, the administration, the judiciary will be in line and they will have better results.”

The cause of Iran’s unrest lately was Donald Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the nuclear deal. He imposed sanctions on the Republic and Raisi, among others, drowning Iran’s ability to export oil and plunging it into a recession.

It hardened the turmoil and in the hope that the nuclear deal that crushed the dreams of the 24 million Iranians who voted for Rouhani in 2017 would bring change and prosperity.

Their disappointment came into Raisi’s hands. His conservative election heeded calls by his leaders to vote while the reformists stayed at home.

So even though he technically won a landslide, he faces serious challenges without the strong popular orders of his predecessors.

“Raisi has entered a game where he will lose. In front of the public, rightly or wrongly, his victory was predetermined,” said a reformist analyst. “That makes people angry.”

Others fear that pro-democracy activists will try to further reject and oppress them.

“There is no doubt that pro-democracy people will be oppressed,” activist Yazdi said.

There have long been concerns about Raisi’s human rights record. Now, it threatens to tarnish credibility at home and abroad, while Tehran is negotiating with world powers to get the U.S. to return to a nuclear deal and reach an agreement to lift sanctions.

President Joe Biden has said he will join the deal again if Iran fully complies with the deal. But the new government will be led by a man accused of overseeing executions by the Trump administration, “for torture and other ill-treatment of prisoners,” when Raisi was sentenced in 2019.

When he was a state prosecutor in the late 1980s, he was allegedly involved in the execution of thousands of political prisoners. He has not commented on that period.

Born into a religious family, Raisi’s upper path was evident five years ago when Khamenei appointed him patron saint of the Imam Reza shrine in his hometown of Mashhad, a powerful position that oversees Iran’s sacred site.

In 2019, when Khamenei was appointed head of the judiciary, one of the main centers of hard power, he took the position that earned him praise for launching the crusade against corruption, even among some critics. Others, however, saw it as a resumption of their political intentions.

During the election campaign, he offered few details of the policy, but said domestic issues were his priority. He wanted to attract Iranians who had suffered economic hardship, sometimes referring to his own humble upbringing.

“I’ve known poverty, I’ve tasted poverty,” was a phrase he repeated.

He has made only fleeting references to foreign policy and few expect significant change, whether with Iran’s hostile relations with the US, with support for militant groups in the regions, or with an expansion of the missile program.

Unlike Rouhani, Raisi has had little influence abroad, and Khamenei makes major regional policy and security decisions.

Analysts added that Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad is likely to be more radical than Iran’s tough last president. His first tenure was an excellent populist policy that sparked great tensions against the US and Israel and sparked economic chaos.

But conservatives also acknowledge that Raisi has a terrifying mission.

“It is unlikely that Raisi’s verdict will be similar to that of Ahmadi-Nejad and Rouhani [chaotic last years]”Conservative analyst Mohammad Mohajeri said.” Iran’s political ship shakes a lot. “