TEHRAN: Iran’s conservative media Sunday celebrated the presidential election triumph of ultraconservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi whereas the marginalised reformist camp participated in profound soul-searching.
“The start of a New Era,” browse the jubilant front-page headline of this conservative Resalat every day, welcoming the 62% triumph from Raisi, the head of Iran’s judiciary, at Friday’s election.
An austere and pious figure in the Shiite Muslim clerical institution, Raisi is viewed as near the 81-year-old greatest leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who holds ultimate political authority in Iran.
Raisi will take over from average President Hassan Rouhani because Iran attempts to ditch its tattered nuclear bargain with important forces and free from penalizing US sanctions which have pushed a profound financial crisis.
Resalat predicted that a welcome shift in the Rouhani government that it said was dogged by political infighting and inhabited by”fruitless national and international obstacles”.
The medium Jomhouri-e Eslami daily highlighted the conservatives had cemented power throughout the nation, also containing parliament, the judges, both the powerful Guardian Council and the armed forces.
With a little irony in its article, the newspaper stated that”people, the people of Iran, made the traditional faction a tainted authorities” and”people have sent”.
Raisi’s success was widely expected after several political heavyweights were prohibited from running from the candidate-vetting Guardian Council.
Turnout dropped to 48.8 per cent, a record low for a presidential poll from the Islamic republic.
Even the Kayhan daily, that was highly critical of Rouhani, contended nevertheless that turnout had been”epic” contemplating the financial woes as well as the”enemy propaganda”, speaking to boycott calls against opposition groups overseas.
A full-page image of a grinning Raisi was also printed on front page of this ultraconservative Javan each day, which hailed as an election”without a winners”.
It predicted the degree of voter involvement”logical and acceptable” awarded the”discontent within the market and also the coronavirus” pandemicthat includes struck Iran tough.
Reformist paper Arman-e Melli meanwhile called Raisi to”produce trust for its 70 percent” who voted against himabstained or spoiled their ballots, also encouraged him to prioritise foreign coverage along with the lifting of US sanctions.
Rouhani’s landmark accomplishment through his eight years in office had been that the 2015 deal with world forces under which Iran agreed to restrict its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
That deal was hanging by a thread because US president Donald Trump withdrew in 2018 and started a”maximum pressure” sanctions effort against Iran.
The reformist Shargh every day, meanwhile, represented on the bad operation of the sole offender from its own political Circle, former central bank chief Abdolnasser Hemmati, that scored only 8.4 percent.
In addition, it contended that the major characters of the reformists, who encourage societal reforms and closer connections with the West, had failed their voter base and called to them to”go back to the folks”.