Conservative cleric Raisi favored to win Iran's presidential election
17 June 2021
Iranian Judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi is the favorite to win Friday's presidential election, a result that would reassert conservative control over all levers of power in Tehran.
Driving the news: The latest polls in Iran project a very low turnout of around 42% — a testament to the disillusionment of supporters of the reformist camp who find themselves with no candidate to vote for.
The backstory: Iran's Guardian Council disqualified all of the reformist candidates, including former parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani, a supporter of outgoing President Hassan Rouhani and his policies. Larijani was seen as a potential front-runner.
- Raisi is a close confidant of and potential successor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. He has the support of most of the conservative camp, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
- The least hardline candidate is former central bank governor Abdolnaser Hemmati, who has courted reformist voters with little success. Recent polls show Hemmati with less than 10% of the vote compared to around 50% for Raisi.
- On Wednesday, in a last-ditch effort to win the support of reformists, Hemmati announced that he would appoint outgoing Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to a top position if elected.
Between the lines: Raz Zimmt, an Iran expert at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, told me that Iranian voters aren't just disillusioned with the approved list of candidates but also with Rouhani's tenure as president.
- “Rouhani had many ideas for domestic reforms, more liberties and less involvement of the IRGC in the country’s economy, but most were never implemented and this created great disappointment among reformists," he said.
What to watch: The elections are taking place while Iran holds indirect talks with the U.S. on a mutual return to compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal.
- Western diplomats involved in the talks think Khamenei wants a deal in place before Raisi assumes office at the beginning of August.
- Yes, but: Rafael Grossi, who leads the UN's nuclear watchdog, told Italian daily La Repubblica on Wednesday that it won't be possible to get a deal until a new Iranian government is formed.
What’s next: The results of the elections are expected on Friday night Iran time.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.