Iran’s outgoing President Rouhani leaves office diminished by economic crises

i24NEWS - AFP June 15, 2021, 03:40 AM Iranian Presidency Office via APPresident Hassan Rouhani addresses the Iranian nation in a televised speech, Tehran, Iran, August 6, 2018. Following two terms of a reformist president, Iran likely to return to ultra-conservative rule Promising greater openness at home and outreach abroad when he was elected in [...]

Rhonda Ballance June 15, 2021

i24NEWS – AFP

June 15, 2021, 03:40 AM

Iranian Presidency Office via APPresident Hassan Rouhani addresses the Iranian nation in a televised speech, Tehran, Iran, August 6, 2018.

Following two terms of a reformist president, Iran likely to return to ultra-conservative rule

Promising greater openness at home and outreach abroad when he was elected in 2013, Iran’s outgoing moderate President Hassan Rouhani comfortably won a second term but leaves office as a deeply unpopular figure.

Ultraconservative Ebrahim Raisi is widely expected to win the presidency on record-low turnout this coming Friday – an outcome that would set in stone the disappointment of the Rouhani years, marked by crushing economic woes.

Rouhani “wanted above all to liberalize the Iranian economy and develop the private sector’s role… by attracting foreign investment,” said Thierry Coville, a researcher at the Institute for International and Strategic Relations in Paris.

But that strategy was “totally trampled” by former US president Donald Trump when he withdrew from a nuclear accord and reimposed sanctions on Iran.

Targeted incessantly by criticism from ultraconservatives in Iran, who accuse the government of “ineffectiveness”, particularly over its handling of the pandemic, Rouhani was left very much on the back foot.

Reformists criticized Rouhani for failing to implement election promises on increased freedoms, but the powers of the president are limited in Iran.

Supreme leader Ali Khamenei is the most powerful figure, and the influence of the president is strongly limited by institutions including the Revolutionary Guards and the Judicial Authority.

Rouhani was also unable to win an end to a ban on Twitter and Facebook, despite his promise to do so, and most of the web remains accessible in Iran only via VPN.