When I arrived in Tehran a week ago, the atmosphere was very tense. There was just one topic: the Iranian election. Everybody was nervous about the outcome: Hassan Rouhani the acting president and a reformer or his conservative rival Ebrahim Raisi.

The nights before the election were already filled with cheering and singing people on the streets and squares, honking cars accompanied by motorcades and foot parades. The streets were bursting into police but everything remained peaceful.

On Friday, 19th May 2017, the Iranian people re-elected their old/new president: Hassan Rouhani. With more than 23 million votes (57%) Rouhani has won the election in a landslide for efforts to end Iran’s international isolation and bring greater freedoms at home. Polling stations were forced to stay open until midnight in parts of the country because so many Iranians wanted to vote, some of my friends in Tehran waited up to 5 hours in line. More than 73% of all registered voters in Iran gave their vote.

What followed after the final results were officially announced on Saturday was simply overwhelming. People gathered at the main squares and in the streets celebrating Rouhani’s victory. Tehran’s Vali Asr Street and Tajrish Square in the North, as many other places in whole Tehran, were blocked for several hours by a cheering and singing crowd. Parents with their children, couples, friends, old and young people, rich and poor – they all celebrated peacefully together. The city was bursting into purple and green, both the colors of Rouhani’s party.

I have never experienced that amount of joy by so many people here in Iran ever before. I sincerly hope that Rouhani brings the changes and keeps the pro-western course he was elected for by the majority of Iranians.