BEYOND IRAN’S ELECTIONS: MAKING SENSE OF RAISI’S ISLAMIC REPUBLIC
The MED This Week newsletter provides expert analysis and informed insights on the most significant developments in the MENA region, bringing together unique opinions on the topic and reliable foresight on future scenarios. Today, we focus on Iran, where the Chief Justice Ebrahim Raisi emerged victorious in the last presidential election, with potentially far-reaching consequences for the Islamic Republic and its relations with the rest of the world.
During last week’s election — the twelfth in the history of the Islamic Republic — Iranians chose the conservative Ebrahim Raisi as their next President. Raisi’s electoral success was highly expected considering the Guardian Council’s decision to exclude prominent potential rivals from the electoral race. Raisi – Iran’s current Chief Justice – has won with nearly 62% of votes. In fact, Raisi’s appointment has been widely seen as an attempt to reconcile the presidency with the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as many experts also see Raisi as Khamenei’s most likely successor. Nonetheless, voter turnout hit an all-time low in the Islamic Republic’s entire history, with less than 49% of ballots cast, probably due to several boycott calls. The President-elect will face several issues, starting with a difficult economic situation, a stunted vaccination campaign, and a problematic foreign policy centred on restoring diplomatic dialogues with other countries in the region, such as Saudi Arabia, and reviving the 2015 nuclear accord. Since April, JCPOA’s signatory countries have been meeting in Vienna to negotiate a settlement to restore the deal. Nevertheless, Raisi’s elections could complicate the restoration of the agreement and, more generally, Iranian relations with Washington as Raisi is currently under US sanctions for human rights violation.
Experts from the ISPI MED network react to the election of Ebrahim Raisi as the new president of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
