Hardline judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi wins Iran presidency: 3 ways it matters

Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline legal official sanctioned by the U.S. government, won Iran's presidential election after his main rivals conceded defeat Saturday, state media reported.

Raisi is the chief of Iran's judiciary and was the runner-up in Iran's last presidential election in 2017. Incumbent Hassan Rouhani, a moderate, is stepping down because he has reached his term limit. Initial results showed Raisi won almost 18 million votes in the contest, dwarfing those of the race's sole moderate candidate. 

Rouhani served two four-year terms and broadly speaking he sought more engagement with the West. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ultimately has the final say on all Iran's domestic and overseas policy. However, the election of a new Iranian president could impact a range of issues, internal and external.

Here are three ways Iran's vote matters: 

The nuclear deal 

Washington and Tehran, aided by European nations and Russia, are currently locked in talks over if, and on what terms, to resume a 2015 nuclear accord exited by former President Donald Trump.

The field of candidates for Iran's presidential election was whittled down to just four – three hardliners and a centrist. Raisi's victory could complicate those discussions. He was sanctioned by the U.S. over his involvement in the mass execution of Iranian political prisoners in the 1980s. Raisi's ascendency to president puts hardliners firmly in control across the Iran's government as the nuclear negotiations in Vienna continue.

Exclusive: Iran diplomat says 'window is closing' for Biden to rejoin nuclear deal

But Holly Dagres, a London-based senior fellow with the Atlantic Council think tank's Middle East program, said the election is unlikely to change the overall course of the nuclear deal discussions, which are moving toward restoring the accord. 

"The human rights sanctions (on Raisi) are a problem but he also supports the nuclear deal, in part because the supreme leader endorses the deal. And just because the president in Iran is changing doesn't mean the foreign policy will, too."

'A game of chicken': U.S. holds indirect talks with Iran over nuclear deal amid conflicting political pressure

It's the economy (and everything else)

Dissatisfaction with Iran's economy, as well as longstanding government crackdowns on social and political activists, appears to be behind a likely historically low turnout among Iran's 60 million eligible voters (out of a population of 80 million).

Iran's interior ministry said turnout was 48.8%. This is the lowest ever since the country's Islamic Revolution in 1979.

All the candidates – Raisi; Abdolnasser Hemmati, Iran's former central bank chief; Mohsen Rezaei, a former Islamic Revolutionary Guard commander; and Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh-Hashemi, a far-right lawmaker – were approved by Khamenei to run in the election. Of several dozen women hopefuls, all were disqualified. Several other moderate candidates were also barred from running. 

"Through the participation of the people the country and the Islamic ruling system will win great points in the international arena, but the ones who benefit first are the people themselves," Khamenei said as voting got underway Friday. "Go ahead, choose and vote." 

U.S. sanctions reimposed on Iran's major industries, such as oil and plastics, by the Trump administration have exacerbated Iran's economic problems, including mass unemployment and double-digit inflation. But numerous other issues have contributed to voter apathy, including executions of political prisoners, the shooting down by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard of a Ukrainian commercial airliner, a lack of meaningful reforms and the worst coronavirus outbreak in the Middle East. 

COVID-19 in Afghanistan:Surge in Afghanistan hits U.S. embassy

Inside Iran:U.S.'s contentious history in Iran leads to anger, wonderment weariness

Dagres said a lot of conversations taking place on Clubhouse, an audio social network popular in Iran, bring up the hundreds of protesters who, according to humanitarian groups such as Amnesty International, were killed in November 2019 unrest following a sharp rise in gas prices. The protests spread to dozens of cities in Iran and led to a near-total Internet shutdown that effectively cut Iran off from the outside world for days. 

'Tool of repression': Iran, regimes from Ethiopia to Venezuela go dark online

"Two nights before the election, for example," said Dagres, "an Iranian was saying on Clubhouse: 'Well, it seems on the one hand (our government) kills protesters. On the other hand, it wants us to vote, so it can do whatever it wants with us.'"

In Southern California, home to the largest Iranian community outside Iran, hundreds gathered for hours on Friday outside a polling location in Orange County to protest what they called a "sham" election, waving Iranian flags and chanting for change in their homeland. One large sign read: "Iran Regime's Next President is a Mass Murderer."

"Each one of us here represents many people inside Iran who are tired of the brutality of this regime," said Nasser Sharif, president of California Society for Democracy in Iran. "We are their voices. We're here to show the defiance of the Iranian people."

The poor voter turnout represents a "weakening" of the country's hardline regime amid a rising population of younger Iranians who desire change, said Amir Emadi, who told USA TODAY he was sent to the U.S. for his own safety at age 4.

He called Raisi's rise to the presidency, with Khamenei's backing, "an act of desperation."

Mitra Samani, who said she was a political prisoner for four years before escaping to the U.S. in 1992, called on the Biden administration to side with the Iranian people who are "ready for a regime change."

"Raisi was part of the death squad," Samani said, referring to the 1980s executions and adding that one of her cousins was among the victims. "He's responsible, personally, for murder." 

Prisoner swaps

Over the last several decades Iran has used the detention of dual nationals as bargaining chips in its dealing with western powers, an allegation it says is not true.

At least 15 dual nationals and one foreign national were known to be imprisoned in Iran as of April 2021, according to research by the Center for Human Rights in Iran, an independent not-for-profit organization. 

An American is detained or goes missing abroad:What happens next? 

The White House says it is engaged in indirect discussions with Iran over the imprisonment – on vague spying charges – of U.S. citizens such as father and son Siamak and Baquer Namazi. They have been held in Tehran's Evin prison since 2015.

Raisi, 60, has risen through the ranks of Iran's ultraconservati judiciary, and it remains unclear whether he would look favorably on prisoner swaps.

Regional fallout:Iran's top diplomat accuses Israel of attacking Natanz nuclear facility

According to Ervand Abrahamian, an Iranian-American historian, Raisi was a member of a "Death Committee" that in the 1988 ordered the killings of hundreds of political prisoners following a series of fatwas, or Islamic legal opinions, issued by the Islamic Republic’s founder and then-supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. 

"Raisi's victory portends poorly for any meaningful liberalization trends and reveals the conservative political establishment's confidence in asserting its agenda," said Sanam Vakil, a senior research fellow at Chatham House, a London think tank.

Contributing: Steve Kiggins, USA TODAY