Defeat is growing familiar to the hardliners. The last time they won was in the parliamentary election of 2012, and that they owed to a mass boycott by reformists. This time the hardliners campaigned particularly hard because they sensed they were not only picking a president, but also, perhaps, the next supreme leader (a more powerful post). The incumbent, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is 77. This presidential election may be his last. Formally, the Assembly of Experts selects a successor from among its 88 Muslim scholars. But the last time it did so, in 1989, it picked the then president. “The vote isn’t just about four years of presidency,” says a confidant of Mr Khamenei. “It’s about Iran’s future for 40 years.” Mr Khamenei is said to favour Mr Raisi as his successor; this will be harder to pull off following his drubbing. [...]
Can Mr Rouhani now fulfil his promises? Within hours of his victory, reformists whom the authorities had detained in the run-up to the election were released. His advisers also predict that he will appoint his first female minister, and perhaps even the Islamic Republic’s first-ever Sunni one. More radical change as well, they say, could be coming. Certainly, Mr Khamenei might have been happier had Mr Rouhani won by a less convincing margin.
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