Israel has warned that Ebrahim Raisi, the new Iranian president, “will radicalize the regime’s nuclear and terrorist policies.”

The Chairman of the Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee of the Israeli Parliament, Ram ben barak, qualified this Saturday the election of ultra-conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi as Iran’s new president as a challenge for both Israel and the Westas well as a hint of “Radicalization” in the Islamic Republic.

“The election of Raisi as Iran’s next president is conclusive proof of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s decision to radicalize Iran’s conduct in foreign, nuclear and terrorist policies.the former head of the Israeli Foreign Intelligence Service (Mossad) said on his Twitter account.

With the victory of the cleric “A great challenge has opened at the gates of the West and Israel”Ben Barak added.

Raisi, until then head of Iranian justice, far leads the first official results of Friday’s presidential elections and he has already started to receive congratulations from his predecessor and his rivals. All the predictions gave the winner to the powerful cleric, a great representative of the conservative Iranian establishment.

So far, Iranian National Election Commission spokesman Yamal Arf has confirmed that Raisi leads by far in first official estimates, with 17.8 million votes received, well ahead of Mohsen Rezaei (3.3 million votes), Abdolnaser Hemati (2.4 million) and Amirhosein Qazizadé Hashemi, who would have garnered around one million votes, collects the official Iranian news agency IRNA.

Outgoing Iranian President Hasan Rouhani has already met Raisi to congratulate him on a victory that the president had already predicted early this morning, without giving the name. “It is clear who got the necessary votes”, as reported during its weekly monitoring meeting on the coronavirus pandemic, cited by the same agency.

Shortly thereafter, the IRNA agency released an image of Rohani and Raisi during a meeting between the two in which the outgoing president congratulated him on his electoral victory, to which only the official header remains.

“President Rouhani came to Raisi’s office and congratulated him on his victory in the presidential elections.”, published the spokesperson for the presidency, Alireza Moezi, on his Twitter account.

The total of votes received so far is 28.6 million, about 50 percent of the population trained to vote in an election where the turnout is also being considered as an indication of the acceptance of the Iranian clerical establishment that rules the country.

Raisi, who spent most of his career in the judiciary, became custodian of the Astan Quds Razavi religious foundation, the largest in the Islamic world, which makes him accumulate great power and even appear as the main favorite to succeed the great Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the head of the country.

Vladimir Putin was the first world leader to congratulate Ebrahim Raisi

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a congratulatory message to Iranian President-elect Ebrahim Raisi. “We confirm delivery of the message”, said a spokesperson for the Russian Embassy in Tehran, Maxime Souslov, as reported by the official Russian news agency, Sputnik. Souslov also voiced the Russia’s hope to deepen bilateral relations in various fields.

(With information from Europa Press)

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