Hassan Rouhani wins Iran presidential election

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: BBC

Reformist-backed cleric Hassan Rouhani has won Iran's presidential election, securing just over 50% of the vote and so avoiding the need for a run-off.

Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf was well behind in second place.
...
Although all six candidates were seen as conservatives, analysts say Mr Rouhani - a 64-year-old cleric often described as "moderate" who has held several parliamentary posts and served as chief nuclear negotiator - has been reaching out to reformists in recent days.

The surge of support for him came after Mohammad Reza Aref, the only reformist candidate in the race, announced on Tuesday that he was withdrawing on the advice of pro-reform ex-President Mohammad Khatami.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22916174

[dipsydoodle]

1. Good.

Hopefully a moderate will help over there.

[dlwickham]

2. he's no moderate

if he was, he wouldn't have been allowed to run

Iran is still a theocracy

[pangaia]

3. correctish..

He is a 'moderate' only in relation to the wacko right winger fundamentalists.
Just like so many democrats in the US gvt are democrats in name only.

[PatrynXX]

10. ie oh Hi Obama. aren't your a bit toooo republican??

Obama is no Progressive. Or he would never have let the NSA steer crap around, let XL still bounce around or Cut off the wolves

[Socialistlemur]

13. I'm a democrat in name only I suppose

I haven't been examined by the inquisition to check if my credentials as a democrat are valid. The last time I barely made it because I muttered under my breath Hiillary Clinton was a bitch because she had voted for the Iraq war.

In those days party orthodox thought held the war to be our patriotic duty because somebody had found a rusty coffee maker buried in the sand, and Colin Powell was running around with talcum powder in a vial scaring the bejesus out of all freedom loving sheep.

Anyway, they issued me my party credentials and told me I had to show my patriotism by serving free food to soldiers at the local USO. Being a rebel I went to North Dakota and hid in the woods for a month, before my brother turned me in and they delivered me to an insane asylum to cure me from my anti war mania.

Which they failed to do because I escaped hiding in the laundry basket. I can't say where I am, because the NSA is recording this and the bastards have a long list of bad material i have written over the years. So all I can say is I will submit to another examination by Democratic Party inquisition panels only if they guarantee I can keep my Obama for President pin.

[Comrade Grumpy]

4. Here's his Wikipedia page. He looks like a pretty substantial character.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hassan_Rouhani

[starroute]

5. As with the new pope, you take these people for what they can offer

Wikipedia says of Rouhani, "He said that he will prepare a 'civil rights charter', restore the economy and improve rocky relations with the West if he is elected."

That seems good enough for a start -- if the ayatollahs actually let him do all that. Those are the three things Iran needs most immediately if that war the Neocons have been faunching for all these years is to be avoided.

For the rest -- well, ayatollahs don't live forever, and there's a huge bulge of young people born since 1979. One step at a time.

[dipsydoodle]

7. He's moderate compared with the conservative hardliners.

Moderate Hassan Rouhani wins Iran presidential election in landslide http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Moderate-Hassan-Rouhani-wins-Iran-presidential-election-in-landslide/articleshow/20608450.cms

That its Ayatollah Khamenei who's effectively in charge is a separate issue. That's a simple matter of cause and effect : a hangover from Iran rejecting being being shit on by the US and UK with their revolution in 1979. The answer to anyone who don't like that is to not fuck them over in 1953 by removing Mossadegh who was their democratically elected leader .

[MADem]

6. Pay No Attention To the Man Behind The Curtain.....

The Great And Powerful OZ has Spoken......!!!!!!!!!!!

Do not be fooled, please. The Guardians chose the candidates; the citizenry chose from an "acceptable range" of candidates.

In a real election with real candidates, this guy would not have gotten ten percent.

Just keep that in mind when offering "praise" for "reform-minded" candidates.

There is no reform so long as Iran is governed by a crew of dictators in turbans.

[Comrade Grumpy]

8. We understand how the Iranian system works, thank you.

A couple of things, though:

Got a source for your "this guy would not have gotten ten percent"?

It's kind of funny how with one breath we describe the elected leader of Iran as a powerless puppet and with the next breath we demonize him as a danger to mankind.

[azurnoir]

9. well the normal talking points are in reboot at the moment

I suspect we'll see a revival of the term "Grand Ayatollah" being spread thickly over the news however

[MADem]

11. The President is only as dangerous as the guy pulling the strings.

He does not control the armed forces or the budget. He does what the Guardian Council tell him to do.

I don't know who you're talking to with your one breath this way and another breath that stuff, but everyone knows that the President is merely a mouthpiece for the ulema--he has very little power of his own. He can be more obnoxious, or less obnoxious, depending on his personality, but he--and it will always be a he, according to current law--will always dance to the ulema's tune, and if the Supreme Leader tells him to jump, his only question is How High.

[Ash_F]

12. Well...it's a start. /nt

[RussBLib]

14. this is very good news

While the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guard still exert primary control in Iran, there are a lot of things that Rouhani can do to open up Iranian society, and this is what that majority of Iranian citizens want. The vote was pretty overwhelming for Rouhani.

He'll probably have to keep up the facade of their nuclear program, but this is really good news for the younger disenchanted Iranians.