SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Iran’s judge Ebrahim Raisi secured a landslide victory on Saturday in the country’s presidential election.
Millions of Iranians voted on Friday in a contest that has been expected to hand the presidency to Raisi, a 60-year-old Shia cleric who is subject to U.S. sanctions for alleged human rights abuses.
Raisi won 17.8 million votes, Iran’s deputy minister Jamal Arf told reporters. More than 28 million Iranians out of 59 million eligible voters cast ballots.
Turnout in Friday’s four-man race was a record low of around 48%.
Raisi’s only moderate rival congratulated him.
“I hope your administration, under the leadership of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, will make the Islamic Republic proud, improve livelihood and ensure the nation’s well-being and welfare,” said former central bank chief Abdolnasser Hemmati in a letter, according to Reuters.
Other candidates also congratulated Raisi, who was sanctioned by the United States in 2019 shortly after being appointed by Khamenei as the judiciary chief.
Appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to the high-profile job of judiciary chief in 2019, Raisi was placed under U.S. sanctions a few months later over human rights violations.
Those included the role that human rights group say Raisi played in the executions of thousands of political prisoners in the 1988 and in the violent suppression of unrest in 2009.
Amnesty International on Saturday called for investigations into Raisi for his role in the 1988 executions.
Iran has never acknowledged the mass executions, and Raisi himself has never publicly addressed allegations about his role.
*This story was updated at 05:28 p.m. EBL time
