How Hassan Rouhani Won in Iran
The nuclear deal was not enough.
Hassan Rouhani has won a clear victory to a second term as Iran’s president. The turnout in Friday’s election was close to 73 percent, with the incumbent taking some 56 percent of the over-40 million votes cast. Turnout in the last election in 2013 was roughly the same. But that year, Rouhani won only 50.7 percent of the vote.
Still, the significance of this election is not that Rouhani won, but what he did in order to win. This was because, as I learned in discussions with those close to his campaign, in the weeks leading up to the election, his victory was no certainty.
Many American observers assumed the election would be a referendum on the nuclear deal, and that Rouhani would coast to victory. But, for the
