EIGHTH LEADER

The winner of the recent presidential election in Iran held on June 18 was Seyyid Ibrahim Raisi. Many experts predicted his victory, while the events preceding the election day clearly indicated that the sixty-year-old Chief Justice of the Islamic Republic of Iran will be the next president of the country.

As a result of the election, Ibrahim Raisi was popularly elected as the eighth president of the country, significantly ahead of his rivals with 62% of the vote and a 48% turnout. The main rival from the reformers – the former Chairman of the National Bank of Iran, Abdolnaser Hemmati, received only 2.4 million votes, which is 7 times less than that of Raisi.

As previously reported, the eighth president of Iran represents the conservative wing of the political spectrum. Now, for the first time in nearly 30 years, all branches of government in Iran are concentrated in the hands of conservatives. By the way, both the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, and Ibrahim Raisi are descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, hence they both can be called seyyids.

Prior to the election, all branches of the Iranian government, as a rule, were divided between reformers and conservatives. Currently, the conservatives, who took control of 70% of the legislature in the parliamentary elections held on February 21, have also won the presidency. It is safe to say that the coming years will become a period of independent rule in Iran by supporters of the conservative line. This is important for the current Iranian government for a number of reasons, which we will discuss later.

Who is he?

The new President of Iran, Seyyid Ibrahim Raisi, or Ibrahim Rais al-Sadati, was born on December 14, 1960 in the city of Mashhad into a priest's family. After his initial education in Mashhad, Raisi moved to Qom, where he received his religious education from prominent Shiite scholars. In some sources, Raisi is referred to as hujat al-Islam, while in others his title is listed as ayatollah, which is higher in the hierarchy.

Raisi joined the protests against the Shah while studying in Qom, and was in close relations with the revolutionary clergy. This explains his entry to the judicial system of the country after the victory of the Islamic revolution.

At the beginning of his career, Raisi worked in the village of Mesjid Suleiman in the province of Abadan. However, in subsequent years, he quickly moved up the career ladder. In 1981, he became a prosecutor in the city of Karaj near Tehran, and then in Hamadan. He was appointed deputy prosecutor of Tehran in 1985, and prosecutor of Tehran four years later.

In 1994, Raisi became the head of the General Inspectorate of Iran. After ten years in this position, in 2004 Raisi was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court of the country. In 2012, he was also elected as a judge of the Qom-based Iranian Religious Court, the only body empowered to judge the country's religious leaders.

Since 2014, Raisi has served as Attorney General of Iran. Two years later, by the decision of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Raisi was appointed head of the Astani Qudsi Razawi Foundation. Popularly known as Bonyad, the foundation is one of the largest religious organisations in Iran and the Middle East thanks to its multi-billion dollar budget, manufacturing facilities, hospitals and relief agencies.

During the 2017 elections, Raisi ran for president of the country, but lost to Hassan Rouhani. Two years later he was appointed the Chief Justice of Iran. This demonstrated the special support and trust of Supreme Leader to Raisi’s personality. Known for his tough temper, Raisi often criticised the government during his tenure in senior government positions. Hussein Feridun, brother of the incumbent President Hassan Rouhani, was arrested on suspicion of corruption shortly after Raisi was appointed Chief Justice.

In November 2019, the US government added Ibrahim Raisi to the sanctions list. The eighth president of Iran is part of the inner circle of Ali Khamenei, and is also known as a conservative and a supporter of the hard line against the West. International human rights organisations accuse him of the involvement in the mass executions of opposition figures in 1988 and of his tough stance against the protests following the 2009 presidential elections.

What is the future of relationship between Iran and the US?

Many are trying to answer this question. Namely, what steps will Ibrahim Raisi take after Hassan Rouhani, who signed a nuclear deal with the US and supported the corresponding foreign policy line?

During the elections in Iran, Iranian officials held nuclear negotiations with the representatives of the six countries in Vienna, thanks to the mediation of the EU. However, the fate of the talks on Iran's nuclear program is still highly questionable. During his first post-election press conference, Raisi answered negative when asked whether he was ready to meet with the US President if the sanctions are lifted.

At the same time, Mr. Raisi called on the US leadership to fulfil the obligations under the nuclear agreement signed in 2015 by his predecessor and to lift the sanctions. He also underlined that Washington's two main conditions on the nuclear deal – cessation of ballistic missile production and aid to armed groups in the Middle East – are unacceptable.

In fact, this was an expected statement from a conservative president, since the Supreme Leader of Iran had previously voiced the same position on the same issue. And Raisi's similar position is quite natural. However, his statement also means that Washington does not have a chance to reach an agreement with Tehran in the near future, since the latter will not accept the two above-mentioned US conditions on the new nuclear deal.

Incidentally, the US put forward the same conditions back in 2018, when President Donald Trump completely abandoned the nuclear deal signing instead a pack of new sanctions against Tehran. Many observers believe that Washington is very concerned with these two issues with regard to the Iranian nuclear program. However, for conservative circles in Iran, assistance to armed Islamist groups abroad is one of the main leitmotifs of their revolutionary ideology. For this reason, it seems incredible that the conservative wing of Iranian politicians, in particular Supreme Leader Khamenei, would abandon their position.

After that, Washington and Tehran can continue negotiations only on the nuclear issue. And only time will tell how pleased Washington will be with the outcome of the talks.

New Supreme Leader

However, the newly elected President of Iran will face difficult days. Conservatives had special reasons to opt for Raisi, since the coming years could be decisive for Iran. Raisi has serious chances to become a new supreme leader of the country. Perhaps, the Iranian government chose Raisi as president because he is one of the possible candidates to be the supreme spiritual leader of the Islamic Republic. But even if their plan fails, the president may have to organise elections for the country's first person. In other words, it is better to entrust the transfer of religious and political power to a deep scholar of Islamic law, a person from the judiciary system and a loyal representative of the conservative revolutionary ideology.

But Ibrahim Raisi faces serious difficulties in carrying out his mission and getting out of the current difficult situation in general. Tough US sanctions have seriously hit the Iranian economy and the national currency. Socio-economic situation of population has worsened. This explains the low turnout (48% in total, and even lower in some regions, including Tehran) during the elections. Raisi, like his predecessor Rouhani, did not promise large economic growth such as direct financial assistance to the population, stabilisation of the exchange rate of the local currency, etc. But in any case, everyone understands that if his government fails to overcome the economic stagnation and to improve the social situation in the next two years, the conservative wing of the government will, at best, lose its prestige. Moreover, the risks associated with the growth of public discontent and mass protests will increase. Therefore, the main goal of President Raisi now is to improve the socio-economic situation in the country in the coming months. To do this, he is likely to start in the area he knows best – the fight against corruption. If he succeeds in the near future, the Raisi government will be able to suppress the popular discontent with the socio-economic situation and to prevent the budget milking. During the pre-election debates, Raisi emphasized precisely this aspect of his future activities as the new president of the country.

In addition, by focusing on the development of local production and access to new markets as a key priority for the country’s economic development, Iranian conservatives will direct part of their efforts to improve relations with the countries of the South Caucasus, especially with Azerbaijan. Because they have a rational view of the economic projects implemented in the region, including the construction of the North-South international transport corridor, as well as the involvement of Iranian companies in the restoration of the liberated territories of Azerbaijan. In the new military-political reality emerging in the South Caucasus, Tehran will try to get closer to Ankara and Baku through the involvement in joint economic projects together with these long-standing allies.

Certainly, under a conservative president, Iran's relations with Israel may become even more tense, which will affect the situation in the region as a whole. But the above-mentioned pragmatic economic interests and new realities will prevail.