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Iran’s Interior Ministry spokesman Seyyed Salman Samani said the decision was rescinded after members of the panel agreed by consensus to give live air time to the candidates to discuss their election plans.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

Iran, Turkey, Qatar mull land route amid Saudi crisis

Turkey seeks to establish a land route via Iran for trade with Qatar which has relied on both countries for sourcing food since a diplomatic crisis broke out with Saudi Arabia. Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci on Saturday was in Tehran where he was expected to discuss using Iran’s land route to facilitate trade with Qatar, Anadolu quoted him as saying. "We're thinking about alternatives for land trade routes with Qatar but the easiest way is passing through Iran," Zeybekci said, according to the news agency.  He traveled to Tehran to attend the swearing-in of President Hassan Rouhani along with delegates from around the world. It was not immediately clear who was representing Qatar in the ceremony.  Turkey has used a land, air and sea blockade imposed on Qatar by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt to flood the tiny peninsula in the Persian Gulf with its goods but Zeybekci said using cargo planes to carry products was no...
Post a Comment
Read more

Iran’s Abbasi snubs Israeli opponent at Agalarov Cup Youth Boxing Tournament

Junior Iranian boxer Mobin Abbasi has refused to take on his Israeli opponent at the 2017 edition of the Agalarov Cup Youth Boxing Tournament in Azerbaijan. On Friday, Abbasi did not show up for a scheduled encounter against a representative from Israel in the first round of men’s 52-kilogram weight class, and was subsequently excluded from the rest of the tournament. The Islamic Republic of Iran refuses to recognize the Tel Aviv regime and has long refused to engage in sports competitions against Israel. The 2017 edition of the Agalarov Cup Youth Boxing Tournament kicked off in Baku, Azerbaijan, on December 20, and will wrap up on December 25. Iranian freestyle wrestler Alireza Karimi Machiani  was beating Russian Alikhan Zhabrailov in a match on November 26 and was leading 3-2, but he purposefully threw his bout to avoid competing against Israel’s Uri Kalashnikov as his second-round opponent. In a ceremony on November 29, the Islamic Republ...
Post a Comment
Read more