By Micah Halpern
I've Been Thinking:
The elections in Iran are over. Now we need to understand the results.
Simply put, moderates and reformers won big - and the hardliners lost. This is a huge success for President Rouhani.
In Teheran, the reformers and moderates won every single seat up for election. In the rural areas, the hardliners won more convincingly.
Some of the candidates who lost the election were the most publicly anti-reform and anti-Nuke Deal.
For instance, after the deal was signed, Mehdi Kochakzdeh called Iran's foreign minister and chief negotiator, Javad Zarif, a traitor. Rouhollah Hosseinian said that he would bury all the nuclear negotiators under cement because they had capitulated to the P-5 + 1.
Fifteen of the sixteen seats that were up for election in the powerful 88 seat Assembly of Experts went to reformers. Two extremely important hardliners were ousted - the chairman of the Assembly, Mohammad Yazdi, lost his seat.
Maybe even more significant is that Mohammad-Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, an arch-conservative who was widely seen as the spiritual mentor to conservative former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, also lost his seat on the Assembly of Experts.
So far it looks like reformers got 30% of the vote, hardliners 40%, independents who can go both ways got 17% and 13% will be runoffs which will take place in April.
Considering that in the last election for Majlis reformers only had 10% of the parliament, this is a huge move toward progress in Iran.
Micah@MicahHalpern.com
Read my latest book THUGS. It's easy. Just click. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=halpern%2C+micah
To reprint my essays contact sales (at) www.featurewell.com
No comments:
Post a Comment