Iran's International position promoted by high voter turnout

A senior Iranian lawmaker underscored that the massive participation of the people in the Friday presidential election enhanced the country's position on the international scene. "The June 14 political epic (massive participation in election) enhanced Iran's bargaining power on the international scene," member of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Vahid Ahmadi said Sunday. "The diplomatic apparatus (the foreign ministry) can have a more powerful and more determining presence on the international scene and express its views with much more power to materialize people's demands now," he added. Ahmadi pointed to the Iranian nation's major demand for the continued and growing use of the civilian nuclear technology, and said, "The Islamic Republic officials will certainly pursue this legal right of the Iranian nation and certainly people's high turnout (in the election) has increased the (country's) bargaining power in the nuclear issue." The 11th presidential and the 4th city and village councils elections were held at some 58,764 polling stations in Iran and 96 other world countries on Friday. The Iranian nation elected Hassan Rouhani as the Islamic Republic's president for the next 4 years. Iran's Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar announced Saturday evening that from a total number of 36,704,156 ballots cast in Iran's 11th presidential election on Friday June 14, Rouhani won 18,613,329 votes, accounting for 52.49% of the votes cast in the election, while his main rival Mohammad Qalibaf could secure only 6,077,292 votes. A number of 50,483,192 people were eligible to vote in the elections. 1.6 million youths came to be eligible to vote for the first time in their lives as the voting age in Iran is above 18 according to the law. The Interior Ministry's election headquarters said turnout among the electorate was 72.7 percent. It also said spoilt votes stood at 1,245,409.