Hassan Rouhani elected president of Iran

[Deleted]

Frankly, this seems as though it might be excellent news, although of course it is too soon to be sure. I myself have never doubted the intentions of the Iranian people, including their statements about their nuclear programme, unlike North Korea, for example.

And Iranian cinema being one of the most intelligent in the world -- especially its way of working around the constraints of censorship -- it has been easy to learn that Iranians are people like all the rest of us and should be respected more than has been done in recent years.

[bixaorellana]

One really phenomenal thing was the voter turnout -- more than 36 million votes cast! That's out of a population of fewer than 77 million people, @50 million+ of whom are eligible to vote.

So far I haven't seen any news stories about general disgruntlement with the election's outcome.

[bjd]

Ironic that the "moderate" was the one in a turban.

Maybe there is no disgruntlement yet because Iranians no longer expect much to change. I saw an interview with an Iranian journalist yesterday and she said that people had expected lots from Khatami (also known as a moderate) and repression of human rights had gone on exactly in the same way.

Given the power structure in Iran, and the fact that presidential candidates had to be approved, I don't think anyone expects great changes but they are just hoping for some improvement in the economic and social situations.

[Deleted]

At least they have the integrity to count real ballots rather than rigging the results in advance.