Iran's Interior Ministry says the Guardian Council has confirmed the result of the country's 12th presidential election, which saw President Hassan Rouhani reelected for another four years in office.

Guardian Council is the body responsible for overseeing elections and confirming their results in Iran.

“Minutes ago, the Guardian Council’s letter confirming the validity of the 12th presidential election was received,” Interior Ministry Spokesman Salman Samani said on Tuesday.

In the letter, Secretary of the Guardian Council Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati announced that the body had received and examined reports and complaints about the election process and ultimately verified the poll’s overall result, he added.

The official said the 12-member supervisory body had received complaints of irregularities in the electoral activities before the election and on the day of voting on May 19, adding that some of them had been sent to judicial bodies for more investigation.

An Iranian woman casts her ballot in the presidential election at a polling station in Tehran on May 19, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

President Rouhani, a moderate candidate, won a resounding reelection victory with 23,549,616 votes or 57 percent of the total ballots. His main rival in the four-man race, Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi, a principlist, secured 15,786,449 votes or 38.5 percent of the ballots. Mostafa Aqa-Mirsalim and Mostafa Hashemi-Taba, the other two candidates, received 478,215 and 215,450 votes respectively.

Overall turnout in Iran's 12th presidential election was registered at over 73 percent.

Six candidates had been approved after vetting by the Guardian Council to run for president. In the final days of campaigning, however, two of the candidates, namely First Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri and Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, withdrew from the race in favor of President Rouhani and Raeisi, respectively.</s>Iran's election watchdog certified President Hassan Rouhani's reelection as fair on Tuesday, dismissing claims by the defeated hardline candidate who had asked for investigation into alleged widespread fraud.

LONDON: Iran's election watchdog certified President Hassan Rouhani's reelection as fair on Tuesday, dismissing claims by the defeated hardline candidate who had asked for investigation into alleged widespread fraud.

"The Guardian Council confirmed today in a letter the results of the 12th presidential election in Iran," Salman Samani, the spokesman of the interior ministry, was quoted as saying by the state media.

Rouhani easily secured reelection for a second term in the May 19 vote, winning more than 57 percent of the vote. His main challenger, hardline judge Ebrahim Raisi, received 38 percent.

Raisi has accused Rouhani of inappropriately using state media and government offices for campaign purposes.

He also protested against the voting procedure, accusing the interior ministry of not sending enough ballot papers to cities and villages where he had the most support.

The ministry has denied the allegations, saying that long queues affected all cities and millions of people could not cast their votes despite standing in line for hours.

"Some reports on violations were not valid, and some were referred to the judiciary," Guardian Council spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei told state television.

The Guardian Council's announcement came as no surprise as its influential chairman, Ahmad Jannati, said last week that he could confirm the validity of the election despite violations.

Protests against the presidential election results in 2009 rocked Tehran and other cities for months, marking the biggest challenge to the Iranian authorities in the last two decades.

The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has since warned candidates against questioning the results, saying it would "serve the interests of the enemies" of the Islamic Republic.</s>TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's electoral watchdog, the Guardian Council, has approved the presidential elections results.

Council spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei told state TV Tuesday that certain complaints by individual candidates had been forwarded to the judiciary, but the overall election results are declared valid.

Under the law, the council had 10 days to review the election result.

The approval clears the path for the start of the next term of re-elected Presidency Hassan Rouhani, who won the May 19 election with 57 percent of more than 41 million votes.

Rouhani will next receive the endorsement of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and will be inaugurated in August.</s>Rouhani to be sworn in August 6

Hassan Rouhani will be sworn in as Iran’s new president on August 6, MP Mohammad Javad Abtahi told IRIB news agency May 30.

Rouhani won a landslide election on May 19 with over 23 million votes against his right-wing rival, who garnered 15 million votes, to stay in office for a second term.

Downing inflation from over 40 to about 6 percent as well as his world-class nuclear deal with six powers are part of Rouhani’s first administration legacy.</s>Iranian hardliners are continuing to grouse about the reelection of Hassan Rouhani earlier this month, with growing criticism, including from Rouhani’s opponent Ebrahim Raisi, accusing him of voter fraud and “inappropriate” interference in the lead up to the vote.

The Reformist candidate Rouhani was reelected overwhelmingly, with the 57% to 38% roughly in line with the polls in the lead up to the vote. The hardliners particularly attacked Rouhani for promising to work for the release of two opposition figures under house arrest, saying it was particularly inappropriate to get votes that way.

The two under house arrest, Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, were ironically put under house arrest for their own claims of voter fraud after the 2011 election, in which former President Ahmadinejad was reelected. Judiciary figures also attacked Rouhani for the comment calling for their release, saying all such decisions were fully up to the judiciary.

Raisi has served in the judiciary and is close with many hardline judges, and is calling on them to move against Rouhani for his action in the leadup to the election, insisting it amounts to fraud, despite no real evidence Rouhani said anything dishonest or did anything other than make campaign promises his opponent didn’t like.
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• Over 1,000 Syria Rebels Leave Damascus Area in Evacuation Deal - May 29th, 2017</s>BEIRUT, May 30 (Reuters) - In the week before the May 19 presidential election in Iran, the eventual victor, Hassan Rouhani, criticised the judiciary and the powerful Revolutionary Guards with rhetoric rarely heard in public in the Islamic republic.

Now, in the eyes of his supporters, it is time to deliver. Millions of Rouhani's followers expect him to keep pushing on human rights issues.

"The majority of Iranians have made it clear that they want improvement on human rights," said Hadi Ghaemi, the director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), a New York-based advocacy group. "Expectations are running high."

That message came through loud and clear shortly before Rouhani, who won re-election with more than 57 percent of the vote, took the stage at a gathering of supporters in Tehran last week.

"Ya Hussein, Mirhossein" went the thunderous chant, a reference to Mirhossein Mousavi, a presidential candidate in the 2009 election, who, along with fellow candidate Mehdi Karroubi disputed the results, spurring widespread protests.

Dozens of protestors were killed and hundreds arrested in the crackdown that followed, according to human rights groups.

Mousavi, his wife Zahra, and Karroubi, were placed under house arrest in 2011 after calling for protests in Iran in solidarity with pro-democracy uprisings across the Middle East.

The trio's continued detention is a divisive political issue in Iran and one that Rouhani has promised to resolve.

But if he keeps pushing, he will face a backlash from his hardline opponents which could undermine his second term, analysts say.

At the rally, it took several minutes for the announcer to quiet the crowd before another chant broke out: "Our message is clear, house arrest must be broken".

Along with those arrests, more than 20 journalists and activists were arrested in the lead-up to the elections according to CHRI, an issue which has also been raised by Rouhani supporters.

Many political prisoners are kept in solitary confinement and not allowed to see their families for long periods of time, according to human rights groups.

Iran has one of world's highest rates of capital punishment. At least 530 people were executed in 2016, according to a United Nations report.

Rouhani's supporters also expect him to fight for basic rights that affect their daily lives, like preventing security forces from harassing women for the way they dress or the judiciary from cancelling concerts.

During his first term, Rouhani made the signing of an agreement with Western powers, which lifted a large number of sanctions in exchange for curbs on Iran's nuclear program, his top priority.

As a result, human rights issues were sidelined, analysts say. But now that the nuclear agreement is being implemented, his supporters are waiting for change.

Rouhani's decisive election win may have finally given him the opportunity to address human rights issues.

"As the head of the executive branch, Mr. Rouhani and his colleagues must use this opportunity to the maximum," parliamentarian Gholamreza Tajgardoon said last week, according to the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA).

But signs are emerging that hardliners are ready for a fight.

Iran's judiciary chief hit back at Rouhani on Monday for bringing up the issue of the house arrest of opposition leaders during his campaign.

"Who are you to break the house arrests?" Larijani said without naming Rouhani, according to the judiciary news site Mizan.

Larijani said the Supreme National Security Council must take the initial decision to end the house arrests and then the judiciary would step in.

Any attempt to resolve this issue outside this legal procedure would be seen as an attempt to stoke up unrest similar to 2009, he said, according to Mizan.

"We're issuing a warning that they should wrap this issue up otherwise the judiciary, with authority, will wrap this issue up itself," Larijani said.

Karroubi, 79, served as speaker of parliament before running for president in 2005 and 2009. He now stays largely on the upper floor of his house in Tehran and gets exercise by walking indoors, according to his son Mohammad Taghi. His only sources of information are local newspapers and state TV.

Security agents stay on the premises around the clock and do not allow him to have access to the phone or Internet.

Taghi, speaking by telephone, said the hosue arrest had backfired, raising the profile and importance of his father and the other detainees.

"If the goal is to cut off their political ties, what we've seen is that the passage of these six or seven years hasn't had any effect," he said. "In fact, the limitations and problems have increased their impact in society."

Little progress can be made on any human rights issue without the approval of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the highest power in the country.

"Since becoming Supreme Leader in 1989, Khamenei has sought to weaken every Iranian president in their second term," said Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment.

"Given how directly Rouhani challenged Khamenei during the campaign this tradition is likely to continue."
Guardian Council officially confirmed the result of the election which saw Incumbent President Hassan Rouhani reelected for another four years in office.