It wasn’t the first time Iranian voters expressed their preference for these values. It’s true that the Iranian system offers limited choice and the president has limited power. The regime has policed its boundaries and eliminated true challenges to the entrenched interests of its security apparatus and clerical elite. Mr. Rouhani, a pragmatic centrist when he came to the presidency in 2013, ran to his own left this year. Mr. Rouhani has inherited this constituency, and while his embrace of it was tepid in 2013, he seems more comfortable in the role today.

Source: New York Times May 22, 2017 21:37 UTC