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- Ebrahim Raisi, a hardliner close to Iran's Supreme Leader, won the country's presidential election.
- His election was condemned by human rights groups for his involvement in mass executions in 1988.
- Iran's opposition party said the lack of voter turnout should send a message that Iranians don't approve of this regime.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Iran's opposition group abroad said Ebrahim Raisi's election as president should be a turning point for how foreign governments, mainly the US and Europe, deal with the Iranian regime.
Raisi, the hardline head of the country's justice department, won Iran's election on Saturday. Iran said 28.9 million of the country's 59 million eligible voters cast a ballot, with Raisi winning 17.9 million votes overall, the Associated Press reported.
There were about 3.7 million "white" ballots, or ballots cast without any candidate's name written in. Iranians get a stamp on their birth certificate whenever they vote, suggesting that some did not feel any of the candidates supported their interests, The New York Times reported.
Ali Safavi, a spokesperson for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, told Insider they believe it's more likely that only 10% of the country actually voted, a figure far lower than the official number.
Safavi said the percentage was calculated after calls to boycott the election and footage and eyewitness accounts from inside Iran showed very few people at the polls.
NCRI, an Iranian political coalition based in France and Albania that calls for replacing Iran's theocratic regime with a democratic one, said Raisi's election was a way for the country's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, to hold on to power and prevent democratic reform.
The removal of other opponents, even those who were hard-liners as well, shows the regime's fear of an uprising
"Even some people from Khamenei's faction who are considered his confidants were not allowed to run, indicating the regime has absolutely no capacity whatsoever to even risk having someone as president who may divert from the policies laid down by the Supreme Leader," Safavi said.
The country's Guardian Council oversees the election and determines who is qualified to run for any office. Safavi said in order to qualify "each candidate must prove his or her practical and heartfelt allegiance to the principle of the absolute rule of the clerics."
The Council disqualified Raisi's strongest competition, including reformists and those backing current President Hassan Rouhani.
"Elections in Iran under the clerical regime have been a travesty and the outcome of the elections have never been determined by the people, but by the regime's internal balance of power, except for the first election that was held in 1980," Safavi told Insider.
Raisi's election has prompted condemnation from human rights organizations
"That Ebrahim Raisi has risen to the presidency instead of being investigated for the crimes against humanity of murder, enforced disappearance and torture, is a grim reminder that impunity reigns supreme in Iran," Amnesty International's Secretary General Agnès Callamard said in a statement.
In 1988 Raisi was a deputy prosecutor of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran and a member of the "death commission," a group of which forcibly disappeared and extrajudicially executed thousands of political dissidents in secret.
Safavi said the clerics have used the nuclear deal and historical grievances as ways to solicit concessions to continue their regime, which is responsible not just for atrocities towards its own people but for supporting instability across the Middle East.
He said the lack of voter turnout should send a message to the west that Iranians themselves don't approve of this regime and western nations should be unequivocal about ensuring a democratic party is put in place in Iran.
"Europeans have failed to understand that the Iranian people reject this regime. If they have one reason to hate the Shah, they have a thousand reasons to hate this regime," Safavi said. "This regime has brought them nothing."