A majority of Iranians voted May 19 to give moderate incumbent President Hassan Rouhani a second term, but conservatives appear unwilling to accept the results of the balloting. Conservatives have been protesting the election process since the first hours of election day and are now accusing the Rouhani administration of violating the law. Such is not unprecedented.

In 2016, prominent Iranian conservative Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel claimed that the government had violated the law during parliamentary elections, but without documentation to substantiate his claim. That election saw moderates and Reformists voted into parliament in large numbers.

In remarks published May 22 on the Telegram channel of the hard-line Raja News, Ebrahim Raisi, the leading conservative candidate in the election, asserted that the alleged violations were not of a limited scope and that he is pursuing the matter through the Guardian Council.

Moreover, Ali Nikzad, head of Raisi’s campaign, said that same day, “Seyyed Ebrahim is like a mother who left his baby to prevent him from being hurt, and the baby fell [into the hands] of the stepmother.” In other words, Nikzad is alleging voting fraud, but for the sake of Iran’s national security Raisi has not publicly announced anything — and that is why Rouhani is now president.