In Iran, the presidential election was won by a man directly responsible for thousands of death sentences. His involvement in the mass executions of 1988 in particular will strain his relationship with the West.
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With 17.8 million votes, the arch-conservative head of justice Ebrahim Raisi clearly won the presidential election in Iran on Friday.
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With his rimless glasses, his shy smile and his somewhat awkward gestures, Ebrahim Raisi doesn’t look like a typical hardliner at first glance. But nobody should be fooled by the reticent demeanor of the new Iranian president. The previous head of justice embodies the repressive character of the Islamic Republic like hardly any other politician in Iran. No president before him has been so directly involved in the persecution of opponents of the regime, and no one has as much blood on his hands as Raisi.
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