The outgoing President Rouhani announced to the Iranians the new president of the Islamic Republic, Ebrahim Raissi, who won in the first round with 62% of the votes, in a consultation where abstention played a fundamental role. Ebrahim Raissi, ultraconservative, received congratulatory messages from all opponents, including the moderate candidate and former Central Bank governor, Abdolnasser Hemmati: "'I hope that his government, under the leadership of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, will bring comfort and prosperity to the nation,' wrote Hemmati in a letter relaunched by the official media".
Ebrahim Raissi, known as the powerful head of Tehran's judicial authority, said in a recent speech: "I stand as an opponent of corruption, incompetence and the luxurious lifestyle of some leaders". Raïssi had the support of the Unity Council of Conservatives, which brings together most of the ultra-conservative groups and some of the traditional conservatives.
On the other hand, it is recorded that the electorate of the outgoing president Rouhani, made up of the liberal bourgeoisie and ethnic and religious minorities, was disappointed with the results of the government, both economically and socially, and for these reasons decided to protest with abstention.
Who is Ebrahim Raïssi
Since the 1919 revolution, Ebrahim Raïssi, a native of Mashhad, a city in the east of the country, has spent the vast majority of his career in the judicial system, rapidly rising through the ranks. He started as a speaker at the court of the small town of Karaj, thirty kilometers from Tehran, and became the prosecutor of Tehran, before assuming the post of first deputy of the chief of justice, then that of prosecutor of the powerful special court for the clergy. Ebrahim Raissi intervened in major cases of serious human rights violations in Iran. After the end of the Iran-Iraq war, he served on a committee that sentenced several thousand political prisoners to death after summary trials. In 2009, after the fierce crackdown on protesters against the controversial re-election of ultra-conservative former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Raïssi, then first deputy head of justice, was tasked with handling complaints of ill-treatment in prisons.
Raïssi, the man with the black turban, a sign of his belonging to the lineage of the Prophet, enjoys the support of the Supreme Guide. In 2016 he was appointed head of the mausoleum of Imam Reza, the eighth Shiite imam of Mashhad, and of the very rich Astan Quds Razavi foundation. During these three years, the foundation's help to the poorest has been widely covered by the media and social networks close to Raïssi.
Ebrahim Raïssi has also placed the mission of fighting corruption at the center of his judicial work, in particular by organizing trials of high-ranking officials of the judicial system, accused of taking bribes. Raïssi could also aspire to the succession of Supreme Leader ali Khamenei who is now 82 years old.
"Ebrahim Raïssi is a member of the clergy and a descendant of the Prophet", said Iranian religious scholar and political analyst Mohammad Javad Akbareyn, who lives in France. For fourteen years, Raïssi was also the disciple of ali Khamenei, just as the latter was a student of Ruhollah Khomeyni, the founder of the Islamic Republic.