Iranian elections

Iran election: Hassan Rouhani gets big mandate but will he deliver?

From the outset when the counting of the votes started after midnight in Iran, the early results indicated that President Hassan Rouhani was heading for a landslide.

Even in small rural towns many people preferred the vision that he had put forward, a vision in sharp contrast to the inward looking, traditional and hardline Islamic government promised by his main challenger, Ebrahim Raissi.

President Rouhani won 23.5 million votes, or 57%. Turnout was unprecedented - nearly 41 million people voted, or 73.5% of the eligible voters. In Tehran, more than five million people came out to vote, twice the number of 2013.