Reformists make gains in Iran election

Iranian president Hassan Rouhani and his allies have won big gains in elections that could deepen Iran’s engagement with the world after his government ended years of sanctions by agreeing to curb its nuclear program.

The outcome in the results for Tehran was a blow to the conservative Islamic establishment, although it retains decisive power due to Iran’s unwieldy dual system of clerical and republican rule.

Most of the politicians who failed to win re-election to the new parliament strongly opposed the nuclear deal, including Mehdi Kouchakzadeh, who called foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif a traitor, and Rouhollah Hosseinian, who threatened to bury the negotiators under cement for agreeing to concessions to world powers.

“This election can be a turning point in the history of the Islamic Republic,” said an editorial in reformist newspaper Mardomsalari, whose editor, Mostafa Kavakebian, won a parliamentary seat in Tehran.

Rouhani and allied centrists and moderates won 15 out of the 16 Tehran seats in the 88-member Assembly of Experts, which is tasked with choosing the country’s next supreme leader, final election results for Tehran showed.

Some of the 15 elected in Tehran were in both conservative and reformist electoral lists.