With the winning slogan “Moderation, hope, caution”, Hassan Rohani won 50.7% of the votes at Iran’s presidential elections on 14 June. Due to massive voter turnout – approximately 75% – polls stayed open five hours longer than scheduled, in Tehran and throughout the country.
On 3 August, Hassan Rohani will be sworn in by outgoing Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He will inherit a tough economic situation: double-digit unemployment, 32.3% inflation, 50% depreciation of the local currency and ‘black gold’ exports in freefall due to the oil embargo imposed by the European Union since June 2012 over the controversial nuclear issue. Rohani did not present any economic recovery plan during the campaign, but his first priority will be to keep inflation in check with a monetary policy diametrically opposed to his predecessor’s populist approach. With the approval of Parliament, two measures need to be taken that risk upsetting the people: reducing cash subsidies to families (which replaced indirect fuel and food subsidies) and the number of low-cost loans granted to people living in rural areas. Let’s step back a moment and examine the profile of the new president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Born in 1948, in the 1960s Rohani was imprisoned for criticising the Shah and rumour has it he was the first to call Ayatollah Khomeini by the title of Imam. He served in parliament for 20 years; has been a member of the Expediency Council since 1991 and served on the Assembly of Experts since 1999. He was Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council from 1998 to 2005, during which time he also served as the country’s chief nuclear negotiator. His credentials are impeccable and among his many positions, he also heads the Centre for Strategic Research, an Iranian government think tank that could yield the next Finance Minister. Yet while he’s managed to stoke the hopes of many Iranians, especially the young and women, Rohani is not a reformer. He is a pragmatist. During the Shah years, when he was a simple theology student, Rohani joined Khomeini, who was in exile in Iraq, and had no qualms about removing his turban in order to cross the border unnoticed. In Iran, pragmatism is the guiding principle in decision-making: choices must be made in the best interest of the nation, even at the cost of infringing upon Islamic tenets, as Khomeini did when he accepted a ceasefire with Iraq in 1988. Rohani’s economic choices will necessarily be tied to foreign policy, the prerogative of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, with whom the newly elected president will have to work in order to overcome the country’s international isolation. A first step will be to replace Ahmadinejad’s diplomatic corps with competent men. This probably means religious leaders will have a role in government. After all, Rohani’s electoral triumph not only means that the moderates have turned the tables on the fundamentalists, but that the clergy has also trumped the pasdaran (Revolutionary Guards of the Iranian army) and the ‘deviant’ beliefs upheld by Ahmadinejad, who ran into conflict with the ayatollahs by claiming that he speaks directly to the Mahdi (the Twelfth Shia Muslim Imam, 9th C. A.D.), without the mediation of a cleric. The victory of a moderate like Rohani represents an obvious break with the politics of Ahmadinejad’s two terms. And while the latter’s future remains unknown, his ally Gholam- Hussain Elham, the official spo – kesperson of the outgoing administration, has only said that Ahmadinejad “will return with the manifestation of the Hidden Imam [Mahdi]”. This reference to Shia theology triggered criticism and hilarity among Iran’s religious establishment. Yet another sign that, in the coming months, realism and pragmatism will be employed to try and ferry Iran out of the crisis. Pragmatism will also be important for domestic policy. Government legitimacy depends both on the popular vote – as noted by Iranian attorney and 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi – and on a concurrent respect for rights. This is why Rohani promised back in July that he would promote justice and civil rights. It remains to be seen whether he will be able to free Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, the leaders of Iran’s Green Movement, who have been under house arrest (along with their wives) since 14 February, 2011, when they requested permits to hold a demonstration in support of the Arab uprisings. It’s hard to predict the future in a country as complex as Iran, which is five-and-a-half times the size of Italy and has a population of nearly 80 million. We must wait and see. Without being overly enthusiastic, there is hope fuelled by the fact that, on 21 June, in his first public appearance after the elections, Rohani invited popular actress-director Pegah Ahangarani to the stage. Arrested twice for supporting the reformists, the 29-year-old, dressed in bright colours for the occasion, asked Rohani to appoint officials who are qualified, honest and competent. That would be a good place to start, in the wake of the ‘Moderation, hope, caution’ slogan that won him the election.
With the winning slogan “Moderation, hope, caution”, Hassan Rohani won 50.7% of the votes at Iran’s presidential elections on 14 June. Due to massive voter turnout – approximately 75% – polls stayed open five hours longer than scheduled, in Tehran and throughout the country.
