Daily US Times: Hardliner Ebrahim Raisi is set to be the next president of Iran after winning most of the votes counted so far.
Mr Raisi, who has served as a prosecutor for most of his career beat three other candidates in a poll in which most would-be candidates were barred from standing.
He is Iran’s top judge and holds ultra-conservative views. He has been linked to past executions of political prisoners and is under US sanctions.
In Iran, President is the second-highest-ranking official in the country, after the supreme leader.
The president has significant influence over foreign affairs and domestic policy. But in Iran’s political system it is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader and the top religious cleric, who has the final say on all state matters.
Iran is run by conservative religious values, and there have been curbs on political freedoms since its Islamic Revolution in 1979. Many Iranians saw this general election as having been engineered for Mr Raisi to win, and shunned the poll.
The 60-year-old cleric was appointed head of the judiciary in 2019, two years after he lost by a landslide to Hassan Rouhani in the last presidential election.
Ebrahim Raisi has presented himself as the best person to fight corruption and solve Iran’s economic problems. “Our people’s grievances over shortcomings are real,” Mr Raisi said as he cast his vote in Tehran.
He is fiercely loyal to the country’s ruling clerics, and has even been seen as a possible successor to Ayatollah Khamenei as the country’s supreme leader.
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