TEHRAN: Moderate cleric Hassan Rohani has become Iran’s new President by securing 50.70 % of votes in the country’s 11th presidential election, Iranian Media reported on Saturday, following a vote that saw mass popular turnout of 72.7 percent on June 14.
Rohani won a total of 18,613,329 votes out of 36, 704,156 votes tallied. Tehran Mayor Muhammad Baqer Qalibaf was well behind in second place.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is scheduled to ratify the vote on August 3, while the new president will then take the oath in parliament.
Millions of Iranian voters headed for polling stations on Friday to cast their ballots and choose the country’s 11th president as well as their representatives in the city and village councils.
Nearly 50.5 million Iranians, including more than 1.6 million first-time voters, were eligible to vote in the June 14 elections.
The newly-elected Iranian president was born into a religious family on November 13, 1948 in the city of Sorkheh in Semnan Province.
Rohani started his religious education in 1960 at Semnan Seminary. One year later, he moved to the holy city of Qom. In 1969, he was admitted to Tehran University and received his BA in law after three years. Rohani earned his MA and PhD in law from Glasgow Caledonian University.
He was involved in the struggle against the Pahlavi regime as a young man. After Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s return from exile in France in 1979, Rohani was politically active in Europe. He held question-and-answer sessions with students in Britain and France.
Rohani was elected to parliament following the establishment of the Islamic Republic and served as a lawmaker for five consecutive terms until 2000. He held positions such as deputy Majlis Speaker and head of the Defense and Foreign Policy committees.
During the 1980-1988 Iraqi imposed war, Rohani served as member of the High Council of Defense, commander of the Iran Air Defense and deputy commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces.
Rohani currently represents Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei in the Supreme National Security Council, and is member of the Expediency Council and the Assembly of Experts. He is also director of the Expediency Council’s Center for Strategic Research.
Rohani speaks fluent English, Arabic and Persian and has written nearly 100 books and articles as well as conducting 700 different research projects.
