Skip to main content

Candidates fire first salvos in Iran presidential race


The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) will air live the draw for broadcasting both recorded and live programs of presidential candidates on Sunday, with candidates having already launched their campaigns.
The IRIB public relations office said representatives of the candidates will attend the ceremony at 10:00 p.m. local time (0530 GMT).
Radio Iran as well as IRIB TV1 and the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network (IRINN) channels will broadcast the event.
On Saturday, the Election Campaign Monitoring Committee revised an earlier decision not to broadcast live presidential debates after criticism from candidates and many Iranians.
Iran’s Interior Ministry spokesman Seyyed Salman Samani said the decision was rescinded after members of the panel agreed by consensus to give live air time to the candidates to discuss their election plans. 
Read more:
First debate on Friday
On Sunday, Ehsan Qazizadeh Hashemi, a member of the IRIB council for presidential election campaigns, said the first three-hour debate will be held on Friday.
Iranians will go to the polls on May 19 to elect the country’s next president.  
Campaigning for the vote officially started on April 21 after the five-day registration process for Iran’s 12th presidential election ended on April 15 and the Guardian Council started vetting presidential election hopefuls the following day.
The six candidates qualified to run in the race are Mostafa Aqa-Mirsalim, Mostafa Hashemi-Taba, Es’haq Jahangiri, Hassan Rouhani, Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf and Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi.  
On the campaign trail, Rouhani traveled to the northern city of Qazvin while Mirsalim held his first press conference in Tehran to stress that he will not leave the field in favor of any candidate.
He also took aim at the 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers under the Rouhani administration, saying it has failed to lift sanctions or improve the country's economy.
Mirsalim said if elected, he would abide by the nuclear deal but the US President Donald Trump's administration had already undermined the agreement. 
Qalibaf traveled to Sari in the Caspian Sea and plans to go next to the holy city of Qom on Monday. Raeisi will visit Iran's southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan province near the border with Pakistan on Monday.
Some 55 million Iranians are eligible to vote for a new president in what is expected to be a close race. Previous election results have usually produced major surprises.
The two major factions in the elections are Reformists and Principlists. Rouhani narrowly won the election last time with 51 percent in the first round, helped by a divided Principlist camp which Raeisi represents this time around.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

General Qasem Soleymani's letter to the Secretary of Defense of the United States of America

In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate Obama has sent a rude and threatening Letter to Imam Khamenei (d.z) , Iran's Supreme Leader. Few days later Imam Khamenei (d.z) proclaimed that he replied to Obama's threatening letter. People were eager to know about the answer but no one was aware of the letter's content. Cmdr. Qasem Soleimani sent a letter to the Secretary of Defense of the United States of America, a letter that may help us to find out about the content of the Supreme Leader's letter. The so-called letter made Americans furiously angry so that the United State Congress issued Cmdr's assassination. To find out how important was this action, it would be interesting to describe the procedure through which the letter was received by The Secretary of Defense United States Department Of War includes seven protective filters four of which are specifically designed to monitor data sent to secretary of defense. . Sending a letter ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Slovenia reopens embassy in Iran’s capital after nearly four years

The Slovenian government has reopened its embassy in the Iranian capital after nearly four years of closure. Slovenian President Borut Pahor, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his Slovenian counterpart Karl Erjavec attended a ceremony for the reopening of the embassy in Tehran on Wednesday. Speaking during the ceremony, Zarif said the reopening of the Slovenian embassy would set a good trend towards the promotion of relations between the two countries. “There are good and suitable grounds for bilateral cooperation, which… we can advance [to a level] beneficial to the regional nations,” Zarif said. Pahor, for his part, said the reopening of his country’s embassy in Tehran bears testimony to good cooperation between the two countries. “We want to create common interests among our nations, and we believe that today is a very significant and promising moment for both countries and highly important for the development of Slovenia's diplomatic a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Yemeni tribes joind hands to counter Saudi aggression

Yemeni tribes in different provinces have joined forces to counter the deadly Saudi aggression against their country, vowing revenge for the blood of the innocent. In the northwestern province of Hajjah, the tribes of the Sharafein district expressed their readiness to deploy forces to the battleground in response to a call issued by the tribes of Khulan and Sanhan, Yemen’s al-Masirah television reported on Saturday. Bani Sara tribe in al-Shaqadreh also said that it was prepared to team up with Khulan al-Tayal tribe to score a victory against the Riyadh regime and take revenge for the recent Saudi carnage in the capital, Sana’a, which was denounced by rights groups as a war crime. Sana’a saw one of the deadliest Saudi attacks on October 8, when the regime’s warplanes bombarded a funeral hall packed with mourners in the capital city, killing more than 140 people and injuring at least 525 others. The tribe of Sanhan in Sana’a put 300 troops equipped with arms on ale...
Post a Comment
Read more