Hassan Rouhani Wins Another Term as President of Iran

TEHRAN- Hassan Rouhani has won Iran’s 12th presidential election, receiving a popular mandate for another four years in presidential office.

Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli appeared at a press briefing on Saturday to declare Rouhani the winner of the Friday election with 23,549,616 votes, or 57 percent of the total ballots.

Rahmani Fazli said that a total of 41,220,131 votes had been cast, and that the results he was announcing were almost definitive, according to Press TV.

The candidate with the second largest number of votes was Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi, who garnered 15,786,449 votes, or 38.5 percent.

Mostafa Aqa-Mirsalim and Mostafa Hashemi-Taba, the other two candidates, received 478,215 and 215,450 votes respectively.

President Rouhani will speak live on state television at 6:00 p.m. Iran time (1330 GMT) on Saturday.

Iran’s 12th presidential election was held on Friday. Elections were also simultaneously held for City and Village Councils.

Voting hours were extended several times due to a high turnout in the polls.

Six candidates had been approved after vetting by the Guardian Council to run in the election. In the final days of campaigning, however, two of the candidates, namely First Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri and Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, withdrew from the race in favor of President Rouhani and Raeisi, respectively.

H.M