USA TODAY: The election of Tehran’s mayor as Iran’s president consolidates power under supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and will bolster those in the United States who argue against engagement with Iran’s theocratic regime, some Iran analysts say. The victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “very much strengthens the sense here that there is no use dealing with Iran,” said Shaul Bakhash, an Iran expert at George Mason University in Virginia.

Financial Times: The election of a new hardline president in Tehran is likely to complicate the Islamic Republic’s engagement with the European Union just as the UK, France and Germany prepare to make a detailed offer to Iran on curbing its controversial nuclear programme. Although Iranian officials have quickly moved to ease concerns of a change in policy on the nuclear front, European officials yesterday warned that the victory of Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, the ultra-conservative mayor of Tehran, had made the European policy of engagement, whether on the political, economic or nuclear
front, harder to pursue.

The Guardian: How much power will the new president have?
Mr Ahmadinejad is subordinate to supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Under the Islamic republic’s system of velayat-e faqih (leadership of the supreme jurist), Mr Khamenei, with the constitutional watchdog, the guardian council, has final say in crucial fields, such as foreign policy, the armed forces, intelligence, the judiciary, and police.

The Guardian: Ali Shah is the disrespectful nickname Iranians have in recent years bestowed on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supreme religious leader of the Islamic republic. It captures what they see as the monarchial aspirations and the clear limitations of the man who took over the function of “guiding” the republic from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini 18 years ago and who now, after an election that has put his man in as president, controls all the major institutions of the Iranian state.

The Guardian – Leader Article: Conservatives and moderates in the Iranian political system, the supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, has said, are like the wings of a bird. Both must beat if the bird is to stay aloft. It is an image with which many outside observers of Iranian politics, who have for years seen the two tendencies as cooperating and sometimes colluding with one another, would concur. But it does not hold at all today, after the victory in the presidential elections of, a victory which means that the hardliners now have power in every branch of Iran’s government.

Washington Times – Editorial: Rarely has more misinformation been written or stated on one subject than is the case with Friday’s runoff election in Iran.