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Muhammad and who was 19 years-old at the time of the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought down the Last Shah, said in a victory statement that he will form a “hard-working, anti- corruption and revolutionary” cabinet. He added that he would be president for all those who voted for him, for those who didn’t and for those who didn’t vote at all.
Preliminary results showed Raisi secured 17.8m votes. The conservative Mohsen Rezaei attracted 3.3m votes and the former head of the central bank and little-known moderate Abdolnaser Hemmati 2.4m. Raisi drew 15.8m votes when he lost to a Rouhani landslide in 2017.
Asked about the disqualifications of candidates, Zarif said: “Many of us were surprised and disappointed but at the end of the day Ebrahim Raisi is the president of all Iranians.”
“Closes the door”
Speaking to CNN on the eve of the election, Sanam Vakil, deputy director at the Middle East programme at the London thinktank Chatham House, said: “Western policy makers have
long hoped and tried to nurture the reform or transformation of the Islamic Republic hoping that, through elections, moderation or reform would come
from within. This election... and the selection of Ebrahim Raisi really closes the door on any hope of reform and that’s going to be a real challenge for the international community and for the Biden administration.
“Iran’s population is young and their hopes for the future are being dashed without economic opportunity so it is going to fall to the Raisi government to try and forge a new path and try and rebuild some bonds with the people.
It is unclear to me how that is necessarily going to happen because
a lot of his policies remain rather vague and undefined and, of course, the political system has become significantly more repressive, and relying on coercive power to maintain authority is always dangerous.”
Khamenei given Iran made coronavirus vaccine shot
bne IntelliNews
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on June 25 received his first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine made in Iran, state TV reported.
TV footage showed Khamenei, 82, receiving the COVIran Barekat vaccine, developed by a state-affiliated company and sanctioned for public use in June.
With an efficacy of around 80%, COV-Iran Barekat has a greater efficacy than China’s Sinopharm vaccine, a senior member of Iran’s National Task Force for Fighting COVID-19, Minou Mohraz, was cited as saying by Fars News Agency on June 16.
Iran, with a population of 83mn, has officially recorded 83,588 deaths from coronavirus. Neighbouring Turkey, with the same population, has officially registered 49,417 deaths related to the virus. Serious concerns about the reliability of the coronavirus data produced by the health ministries of both countries have been raised by both in-country and external experts but the criticism of Turkey’s statistical releases has been louder and more sustained. Notably, even though Turkey has a much lower death rate, its number of officially logged coronavirus cases stands at 5.39mn, compared to Iran’s 3.15mn. The Middle East country with the third worst coronavirus outbreak
is Iraq with an official 1.32mn cases. The Iraqi population numbers 39mn.
Iran is attempting to accelerate its coronavirus vaccination programme. Tehran has several times complained that US sanctions, which Washington says are not meant to hamper humanitarian deliveries to the Islamic Republic, are in fact slowing the sourcing and delivery of vaccines.
In January, Khamenei banned health officials from importing vaccines made in the US and UK, claiming they were unreliable and might be used to spread coronavirus infections to other nations.
Iran is also using Russia's Sputnik V vaccine in its inoculation drive. It is being made locally. A vaccine jointly produced by Iran and Cuba also looks set to come into the picture.
Iran launched human trials of COVIran in December. Other home-made vaccines are in the pipeline. Iran is also participating in the COVAX scheme, run by the GAVI vaccine alliance and the World Health Organization (WHO). Its objective is to secure fair access to vaccines for poorer countries.
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