Azernews.Az

By Gunay Hasanova

Iran`s interior minister has recently announced that incumbent President Hassan Rouhani will run for next presidential election in Iran, expected to be held in May 2017.

With nine months ahead until the next Iranian presidential elections, analysts, as well as, supporters of President Hassan Rouhani wonder whether he will win a second term.

As the Constitution of Iran indicates the president is elected for a four-year term by the direct vote of the people and his re-election for a consecutive term is permissible only once.

Rouhani is frequently described as a moderate politician, strongly legitimate man in Iran, who has served in most of the security institutions.

President Rouhani assumed office in August 2013 promising to sort out the nuclear problem in order to improve living standards in the Islamic Republic.

Hassan Rouhani is considered by many experts as the first president of the Islamic Republic who could succeed at creating consensus between competing factions around a centrist position.

A fragile consensus that Rouhani’s centrist position offers may ultimately be the best viable option for the Islamic Republic.

Iran’s agreement on implementation of the nuclear deal, bitterly opposed by powerful opposition groups, is an indication of this. The main basis for the success of Rouhani’s strategy was that both conservatives and reformists saw an urgent necessity to fix the Iranian economy.

Consequently, his policy has led to recent and novel crossover between reformist and conservative power factions within the leadership system.

Saeed Kamali Dehghan, the previous scholar at Tehran University’s Faculty of World Studies told in an e-mail to AzerNews that these elections will also serve as a vote of confidence in Rouhani’s moderate government, which was responsible for securing the nuclear accord in spite of hard-line opposition at home.

The expert considers that the outcome of his presidential term will affect his chances of re-election in 2017.

“Rouhani currently himself is a candidate for the assembly and some people think he has big ambitions for the future. He is number one on the list of candidates supported by the reformists," Dehghan added.

However, the most recent poll found that 74 percent of Iranians feel their living standards have not improved since the nuclear deal

This can be considered as a negative case decreasing Rouhani's popularity since his promises that “solving the nuclear issues we can solve every other problem" increased expectations a lot.

Touching upon this factor about Rouhani's policy, the expert still holds an optimistic view regarding his re-election.

"For conservatives who did not want to support Rouhani, there are two options: either promote a new and unknown candidate, which is a hard task; or go for one of three established conservatives, namely Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, the mayor of Tehran; Saeed Jalili, former secretary of the National Security Council (a strong critic of the nuclear deal); or Ahmedinejad, whose election will be definitely criticized a lot.

The economic policy of Hassan Rouhani focuses on the long-term economic development of Iran. It deals with increasing the purchasing power of the public, economic growth, raising sufficient funds and improving the business environment.

Rouhani believes that improving the economic conditions of the people should be accomplished by boosting the purchasing power of the people, reducing the wealth gap.

Moreover, during his presidency, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has repeatedly called for further friendly ties with neighboring countries and all the nations across the globe.

In his domestic policy, Rouhani encourages personal freedom and free access to information, has improved women's rights by appointing female foreign ministry spokespeople, and has been described as a centrist and reformist who had improved Iran's diplomatic relations with other countries through exchanging conciliatory letters.

Rouhani has repeatedly said that Iran is ready to cooperate with friendly countries in the fields of economics, science, and technology to establish a common market.

He considers that Iran’s geographical location in the region can make it the cheapest route connecting the West to the East and provide access to open seas and ties with Iran would be beneficial to the world economy and global trade.

Moreover, after the accomplishment of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's term in power, Iran became an isolated and sanctioned country.

However, the Iranian system was quick to remedy this by proposing more balanced Rouhani.

Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the United States, France, Britain, China, and Russia – plus Germany started to implement the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on January 16.

When the JCPOA went into effect, all nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran by the European Union, the UN Security Council, and the U.S. were lifted. Iran in return has put some limitations on its nuclear activities. The nuclear agreement was signed on July 14, 2015, following two and a half years of intensive talks.

Rouhani’s mission, from the very beginning, has been to restore Iran’s network in the global system by establishing more legitimate channels.

Following the JCPOA and the removal of sanctions, his main goal was to set up friendly ties with countries in the region and all over the globe.

While most Iranians blame the United States for not fulfilling its side of the nuclear bargain, and for pressing its European allies to go slow on resuming business with Iran, Rouhani and his supporters are trying to divert attention to the non-economic benefits of the deal. They say that it removed the threat of war and reduced international Iranophobia.

Hence, the deal between Iran and the big global powers is sort of the biggest victory of Hassan Rouhani’s Iran.

Taking all these facts into account, one can state that possibility of Rouhani’s re-election sounds very realistic and beneficial for Iran in order to strengthen its position in international arena.

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Gunay Hasanova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @gunhasanova

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