Iranians abroad have emphatically re-elected President Hassan Rouhani. Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmanifazli announced Rouhani's victory on Saturday on state television. Rouhani secured 57 per cent of the vote in Friday's election, compared to 38 per cent for his main rival, hardline judge Ebrahim Raisi, according to figures cited by Rahmanifazli.
Although the powers of the elected president are limited, the scale of Rouhani's victory gives the pro-reform camp a strong mandate to seek the sort of change that hardliners have managed to thwart for decades.
The re-election is likely to safeguard the nuclear agreement Rouhani's government reached with global powers in 2015, under which most international sanctions have been lifted in return for Iran curbing its nuclear program.
"I am very happy for Rouhani's win. We won. We did not yield to pressure. We showed them that we still exist," said 37-year-old Mahnaz, a reformist voter reached by telephone in the early hours of Saturday. "I want Rouhani to carry out his promises."
Nevertheless, Rouhani stills faces the same restrictions on his ability to transform Iran that prevented him from delivering substantial social change in his first term and thwarted reform efforts by one of his predecessors, Mohammad Khatami.
The re-elected president will also have to navigate a tricky relationship with Washington, which appears at best ambivalent about the nuclear accord reached by former US president Barack Obama. President Donald Trump has repeatedly described it as 'one of the worst deals ever signed', although his administration re-authorized waivers from sanctions this week.
Trump arrived on Saturday in Saudi Arabia, his first stop on the first trip abroad of his presidency. Reuters
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