Despite record, Iran’s Rouhani likely to win 2nd term

TEHRAN (AA) - President Hassan Rouhani is running for reelection against five other candidates in Iran’s May 19 presidential polls.

His chances for victory, however, appear uncertain, as many of the pledges he made during his 2013 electoral campaign remain unfulfilled.

Rouhani won the 2013 election -- clinching some 51 percent of roughly 37 million votes cast -- after pledging to restore the economy, improve relations with the West, promote women’s rights and advance the rights of Iran’s ethnic and religious minorities.

In terms of the economy, Rouhani vowed to tackle rampant unemployment, fight corruption and create four million new job opportunities.

These pledges, however, largely failed to materialize, with Iran’s unemployment rate jumping to 22 percent last year with five million people without jobs, according to Iran’s official statistics agency.

Unofficial estimates, however, put the number of unemployed Iranians at between 7 and 10 million.

Last year, the Iranian government said there were 21.8 million workers in the country, down from 22.1 million at the start of Rouhani’s term, meaning that some 300,000 people had lost their jobs over the past four years.

“This means about 150 people lost their jobs each hour,” said Mohsen Jalal Pour, a former chairman of the Iranian Chamber for Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture.

Though Iran’s overall economy grew by almost 6.6 percent last year, this growth came mostly from increased oil exports after the lifting of sanctions following Iran’s nuclear deal with the West.

Worse still, Iran’s inner-city population rose over the same period to reach a whopping 11 million.

According to presidential candidate Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, some 10 percent of Iran’s population currently goes without adequate food while 40 percent live below the poverty line.

Presidential hopeful Mostafa Mir-Salim also acknowledges that poverty has prevented thousands of students from pursuing an education.

While critics blame the government’s focus on foreign relations for the tough economic conditions, advocates blame the crisis on dwindling oil prices, corruption and stagnation caused by previous governments.

-Freedoms

Rouhani’s first term saw a spike in the number of state executions in Iran, with around 3,000 people reportedly being executed -- including some under the age of 18.

Unofficial estimates, however, put the number of executions much higher.

Rouhani also failed to deliver on pledges to promote women’s rights. During his first term, ministerial posts went exclusively to men.

Women also continued to be harassed on the street by Iran’s so-called “morality police”. The rate of female enrollment in universities also dropped to 45.5 percent last year, down from 48.2 percent during the last year of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s term.

Rouhani also failed to fulfill his pledge to promote civil rights, failing to lift a house arrest imposed on opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who have remained under house arrest since 2011.

His term also saw a rise in the number of activists detained by security forces.

As for press freedoms, Iran currently ranks 165th on Reporters Without Borders’ world press freedom index. Rouhani also failed to lift restrictions on social-media websites in the country.

-Minorities

The incumbent president also failed to deliver on his pledge to upgrade the rights of ethnic and religious minorities. On the contrary, his first term saw a rise in the number of arrests among members of ethnic and religious minorities.

Though Rouhani appointed a Sunni Muslim as an ambassador for the first time since the country’s 1979 revolution, critics see the move as little more than window dressing.

What’s more, scores of Sunni Muslims were executed -- and a number of Sunni mosques closed -- during Rouhani’s term as president.

-Strained relations

Under Rouhani, Iran’s relations with neighboring Arab countries have remained tense due to Tehran’s support for the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

In late 2015, Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic relations with Iran after protesters torched two of its diplomatic missions in Tehran and Mashhad.

Bahrain, Somalia, Sudan, Djibouti and the Maldives also closed their embassies in Tehran.

At a summit in Istanbul last year, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) decried the regional policies of Iran and Shia Lebanese group Hezbollah, prompting Rouhani to walk out of the meeting.

Iranian-Turkish relations have also seen tensions due to the Syrian conflict, which broke out in early 2011 after the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.

Regarding Syria, there has been no major change under Rouhani, who vehemently defends his country’s policies regarding the war-torn country.

As for Iran’s relations with the West, Rouhani did manage to reach a deal with the West over the Islamic Republic’s controversial nuclear program, which the West suspects of aiming to produce a nuclear bomb.

Despite his poor score in his first term, however, Rouhani remains a front-runner and is likely to be elected to a second term in office.