Hassan Rowhani becomes Iran’s new president after winning 50.7% of the votes.
Iran’s Minister of the Interior Mostafa Mohammad Najjar officially announced the final results of Iran’s presidential election (held yesterday Friday).
A 72.7% turn-out of voters shocked foreign observers who didn’t predict such a high participation.
Of the 36,704,156 votes tallied Rowhani won a total of 18,613,329.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei issued a statement congratulating the “Political Acheivement” of the Iranian nation and to the elected President.
In his statement Ayatollah Khamenei described people’s high turn-out as a respond to the western propaganda against Iran.
“The real winner is Iranian nation,” he said.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who will remain Iran’s president for almost 2 months more issued a statement praising the Iranian nation for their strong participation in the elections. He also congratulated his successor Hassan Rowhani.
Rowhani’s Principalist rivals; Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Saeed Jalili, Mohsen Rezaee and Ali Akbar Velayati also congratulated the President to be.
Tehran’s Mayor Ghalibaf won 6,077,292 votes. Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili won 4,168,946 and the former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Mohsen Rezaee secured 3,884,412 of the votes.
Shortly after the announcement of Rowhani’s win, his supporters in Tehran and some other Iranian cities celebrated the victory in the streets.
Former two-term President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani who backed Rowhani in the elections issued a statement on Saturday calling Iran’s elections, the most democratic elections in the world.
“Iranians demonstrated their ignorance to foreign and domestic propaganda. Our enemies should confess that Iran has the most democratic election in the world and they can’t cast doubts on results,” the statement read.
He also appreciated the “Elections authorities” for the perfect conduct of the elections.
“The Tsunami of the Iranian nation beat the White House,” said Mohammad Reza Naghdi the commander of the Basij force (People’s Militia). “The High turn-out in the Iranian election proves the trust of the people to the Islamic establishment.”
On Friday, millions of Iranian voters headed for polling stations to cast their ballots and choose the country’s 11th president as well as their representatives in the city and village councils.
Nearly 50.5 million Iranians, including more than 1.6 million first-time voters, were eligible to vote in the June 14 elections.
