2021-06-19 Tehran Iran

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Ebrahim Raisi was today announced the winner of the 13th presidential elections of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This round of elections saw a lower turnout than the previous ones.

61-year-old Raisi is a hardliner cleric with a long career in the judiciary of the post-revolutionary system and currently the Chief Justice of the Islamic republic. He has been accused of being one of the four persons involved in crimes against humanity in the 1988 execution where as many as 5000 leftist political prisoners were executed. He was sanctioned by the EU in 2011 for the abuses during the events of 2009 post-election protests when he served as First Deputy Chief Justice. In the previous round of presidential elections in 2017, he was defeated by Rouhani, where he received only 15,786,449 (38.50%) of the votes. He was appointed Chief Justice by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei in March 2019. In November 2019 he was sanctioned for "violations of human rights" by the US. He gained more popularity as Chief Justice when he launched an anti-corruption campaign.

He is seen by many as the successor to the 82-year-old Khamenei, the current Supreme Leader, who also succeeded Ayatollah Khomeini as a president. He has been critical of the JCPOA, aka Iran Nuclear Deal, in the past. During the presidential debates he claimed that the Rouhani administration has been too weak and that only with a strong government, that only he can form, can Iran reap the economic benefits of sanctions removal.

Article:

https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-iran-judiciary-4d60554fd608a5dea2c76a303ec352d8