On June 19, local time, Iran's Interior Ministry announced that the incumbent chief of judiciary (the country's supreme justice) and hardline politician Ibrahim Leahy won Iran's 13th presidential election with 62 percent of the vote. However, only 48.8 percent of Iranian voters voted in this election, a record low.
The 60-year-old Leahy, who holds a doctorate in religious law, is Iran's second-highest-ranking grand cleric after Khamenei and enjoys a high reputation in religious circles. In the early 1980s, Iran's top religious leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, took notice of Leahy in his early 20s and instructed then-President Khamenei to promote and groom him. In 2017, Khamenei appointed Leahy to represent the religious conservative forces in the presidential race, and although Leahy was defeated by Rouhani, who was re-elected, he gained enough political popularity to be successful in 2019. to assume the post of chief justice.
Rouhani's performance in his second presidential term has been lackluster, on the one hand encountering the unconventional US President Donald Trump, who has imposed extreme sanctions and pressure on Iran since 2018, and on the other hand the domestic economy has been hit by the new crown epidemic. Faced with a series of economic woes such as inflation, high housing prices and a decimated stock market, Rouhani has basically failed to come up with effective solutions, leaving most of the Iranian public to lose confidence in the domestic reformists. While Leahy carried out "anti-corruption storm" in the judicial system, and tried to build his own pro-people image, and won a good reputation. In particular, during the epidemic, Leahy visited the eastern provinces that were severely affected, which made the lower and middle classes recognize Leahy more.
