Hashemitaba calls on Iranians to vote for Rouhani

Baku, Azerbaijan, May 17

 

 By Khalid Kazimov – Trend:

 

 Mostafa Hashemitaba, a candidate in Iran’s May 19 presidential election, has called on Iranians to cast votes in the favor of incumbent President Hassan Rouhani, ISNA news agency reported.

 

 However, Hashemitaba did not say if he is going to withdraw from the presidential race.

 

 So far, two presidential nominees have dropped out of the country’s presidential election.

 

 Iranian First Vice-President Es’haq Jahangiri has withdrawn in favor of Hassan Rouhani with pro-conservative nominee Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf in favor of conservative-backed cleric Ebrahim Raeisi.</s>Image copyright EPA Image caption Eshaq Jahangiri (L) said he had done his "duty" and would vote for Hassan Rouhani (R)

A reformist candidate in Iran's presidential election has pulled out to smooth the path for the moderate incumbent, Hassan Rouhani.

The withdrawal of Mr Rouhani's ally, Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri, from Friday's poll had been expected.

On Monday, Tehran's hardline mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf withdrew his candidacy and urged his supporters to back conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi.

He is now seen as the main threat to Mr Rouhani, who is seeking a second term.

A recent poll had put support for the two hardliners at 52% and for Mr Rouhani at about 42%. Another had Mr Rouhani at 29%, Mr Qalibaf at 12% and Mr Raisi at 11%, with 28% respondents undecided and 20% declining to answer.

If none of the four candidates remaining wins more than 50% of the vote, a run-off will be held on 26 May.

Mr Jahangiri, 60, announced his withdrawal in a speech to several thousand people gathered in the southern city of Shiraz on Tuesday, saying he had run as a candidate to "make the voice of reformists heard".

"I have completed my historic duty and, together with you, I will vote for Rouhani to help continue on the path to progress for this country," he said.

"Vote for Rouhani because he is the man for difficult situations," he added.

Image copyright AFP Image caption Ebrahim Raisi (L) was endorsed by Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf (R) on Monday

Mr Jahangiri played an important role for Mr Rouhani in the heated televised debates held in the weeks running up to the election, during which he defended the president's record and criticised his conservative rivals.

Mr Rouhani has faced a significant challenge from conservatives because the landmark nuclear deal with world powers that he negotiated in 2015 has not triggered the economic recovery he predicted.

Mr Raisi is a close ally of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and heads a multi-billion-dollar charitable foundation that manages donations to Iran's holiest shrine in the city of Mashhad.

The former prosecutor has promised to build a self-sufficient "resistance economy", create millions of jobs and triple cash hand-outs to the poor.</s>Tehran: President Hassan Rouhani has spent three decades at the heart of Iran's revolutionary establishment but is strongly opposed by hardliners for trying to rebuild ties with the West.

The 68-year-old cleric, almost always clad in his white turban, won a surprisingly convincing victory in 2013 by bringing together moderates and reformists with his vows to ease tensions with the West and improve civil rights at home.

Born in Semnan province on 12 November, 1948, Rouhani is married with four children and holds a doctorate in law from Scotland's Glasgow Caledonian University.

With his snow-white beard, he comes across as jovial and scholarly, if not overly charismatic, when speaking in public.

He has presented himself as the candidate of change and social freedoms, attacking his opponents as "extremists" whose "era is over".

His first term did see a groundbreaking 2015 deal with world powers that ended many sanctions and a 13-year standoff over Iran's nuclear programme.

But critics say he over-sold the economic benefits of the deal, and despite taming inflation, his popularity has been dented by continuing stagnation and high unemployment.

And while social restrictions have eased to some degree during his tenure, many journalists and political activists still face arbitrary arrest, and his efforts to release jailed opposition leaders have failed.

A Bill of Rights he announced in late 2016 was roundly dismissed by critics since it failed to impose any changes on the conservative-dominated judiciary and intelligence services.

Still, many young urbanites consider him the best hope for change.

At his last rally in Tehran, they chanted for the leaders of the mass protests in 2009 known as the Green Movement, who have been under house arrest for the past six years, and accepted Rouhani was not to blame for their continued detention.

"It was beyond his powers. He did everything he could," said one supporter.

As Iran's nuclear negotiator in 2003-05, Rouhani earned the nickname "the diplomatic sheikh" from his European interlocutors, but that was also the start of criticism from hardliners at home who accused him of kowtowing to the West.

Before then, Rouhani had been firmly in the revolutionary establishment. He held key defence portfolios during the 1980-89 Iran-Iraq war before spending 16 years as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Iran's top security post.

When huge student protests broke out in 1999, Rouhani called them "bandits and saboteurs" and most damningly "the corrupt of the Earth" — a charge that carries the death penalty in Iran.

He remains a member of the conservative Association of Combatant Clergy although his position on protesters seems to have softened over the years.

Rouhani consistently sought to rebuild relations with the United States, and became the first Iranian leader to speak with his counterpart in Washington when Barack Obama phoned in September 2013.

He has never been under any illusion about the difficulties of the relationship, telling US journalists in 2002: "America is not keen on independent countries... America is keen on countries that completely surrender themselves and act according to America's demands."</s>TEHRAN - Iran’s reformist first vice president, Eshaq Jahangiri, on Tuesday pulled out of this week’s presidential election and endorsed the incumbent, Hassan Rouhani, ISNA news agency reported.

“I will vote for Mr Rouhani in the presidential election,” Jahangiri said as he announced he was withdrawing his candidacy.

“I have completed my historic duty and, together with you, I will vote for Rouhani to help continue on the path to progress for this country,” he told a crowd of several thousand people gathered in the southern city of Shiraz.

“Vote for Rouhani because he is the man for difficult situations... I ran as candidate to make the voice of reformists heard,” said Jahangiri.

His decision comes one day after Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf withdrew from the race, paving the way for a head-to-head battle between Rouhani and conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi.

Jahangiri, a 60-year-old confidante of the moderate president, was a surprise last-minute entry for Friday’s election.

It was assumed Jahangiri ran to back up Rouhani in pre-election debates and he said at his registration that he stood “side-by-side” with the president who is seeking a second four-year mandate.</s>Iran's supreme leader called on Wednesday for a high turnout in this week's presidential election, urging voters to head to the polls and send a message to the United States — but stopped short of saying which candidate he prefers of the four remaining in the race.

In a televised speech, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the United States and its allies, including the “pathetic prime minister of the Zionist regime,” or Israel, are closely watching the vote on Friday.

He called the election a “great popular epic,” saying that while the region is “drowned in anxiety,” Iran is “peacefully and safely holding an election.”

“From the U.S. state apparatuses to European powers and regional countries aligned with America, to the pathetic prime minister of the Zionist regime, all are closely watching (the vote) and how and in what spirit” the Iranians will cast ballots, Khamenei said.

President Hassan Rouhani, a moderate, is seeking re-election in a vote that will largely serve as a referendum on his outreach to the West, which culminated in the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Under the accord, Iran agreed to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of some economic sanctions.

Despite the deal, Khamenei — Iran's top decision-maker — remains deeply suspicious of the United States and its intentions toward Iran.

 

 Khamenei is believed to favor Rouhani's main challenger, the hard-line candidate Ebrahim Raisi, who has support from major clerical bodies, hard-liners in the establishment as well as allies of former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said turnout is expected to exceed 70 percent. Some 56.4 million people out of a population of 80 million are eligible to vote.

Fazli said vote counting would commence after midnight and that the results would be announced “sooner” than in previous elections. In past elections, results were announced two days later.

Also Wednesday, Hassan Qashqavi, deputy foreign minister in charge of consular affairs and Iranian expatriates, said polling would also be held Friday for Iranian expatriates in 102 countries, including the U.S.

 

 The largest number of polling stations — 55 — would be in America, where more than 1 million Iranians live, he said. In the 2013 election, 20 polling stations opened there for Iranian expats.

According to reports on opposition website Kalemeh.com, Iranian opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, who have been under house arrest since 2011 after they challenged Ahmadinejad's 2009 re-election, each issued a statement supporting Rouhani.

 

 In his 2013 campaign, Rouhani vowed to lift their house arrests but that promise remains to be fulfilled. Rouhani won the presidential election that year with nearly 51 percent of the vote. Turnout for that vote was 73 percent.

 

 Last week, Iran's official IRNA news agency published the results of a survey in which nearly 64 percent of a 6,047 person sample group said they will be voting, while 20 percent said they were undecided.

 

 Historically, the more Iranians who cast ballots, the greater the chance a reformist or a moderate like Rouhani will be elected.

Besides Rouhani and his rival Raisi, two other candidates — Mostafa Hashemitaba, a pro-reform figure who previously ran for president in 2001, and Mostafa Mirsalim, a former culture minister — are in the race but are widely expected to drop out before polling starts.

At a rally in Raisi's hometown of Mashhad on Wednesday, Rouhani urged the country's powerful Revolutionary Guard and other armed forces to remain impartial in the election and keep their “distance from political games.” He also demanded that the state broadcasting company remain neutral.

Rouhani has increasingly criticized the Revolutionary Guard — most recently on Monday, when he said the paramilitary force was abusing public funds to bus Raisi's supporters to his rallies.

 

 And during a presidential debate last week, he accused the paramilitaries of seeking to sabotage the nuclear deal, pointing to the Revolutionary Guard's launch of a ballistic missile bearing the words “Israel must be wiped out” in Hebrew in March 2016.

Later Wednesday, the Trump administration said it will extend sanctions relief for Iran granted under the nuclear deal but that it would also impose new and unrelated economic penalties over Iran's ballistic missile activity. The decision came just before the Obama administration's last six-month waiver was to expire.

By pairing the waiver of old sanctions with an announcement of new ones, the administration is trying to show it's being tough on Iran even as it adheres to the nuclear deal for now. President Donald Trump has said he's reviewing the deal's future.

The new sanctions target Iranian military officials and others accused of supplying Iran with materials for ballistic missiles.</s>Iranians voice their opinions about their country ahead of the nations presidential election on Friday.

“From the U.S. state apparatuses to European powers and regional countries aligned with America, to the pathetic prime minister of the Zionist regime, all are closely watching (the vote) and how and in what spirit” the Iranians will cast ballots, Khamenei said.

He called the election a “great popular epic,” saying that while the region is “drowned in anxiety,” Iran is “peacefully and safely holding an election.”

In a televised speech, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the United States and its allies, including the “pathetic prime minister of the Zionist regime,” or Israel, are closely watching the vote on Friday.

TEHRAN, IRAN—Iran’s supreme leader called on Wednesday for a high turnout in this week’s presidential election, urging voters to head to the polls and send a message to the United States — but stopped short of saying which candidate he prefers of the four remaining in the race.

President Hassan Rouhani, a moderate, is seeking re-election in a vote that will largely serve as a referendum on his outreach to the West, which culminated in the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Under the accord, Iran agreed to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of some economic sanctions.

Despite the deal, Khamenei — Iran’s top decision-maker — remains deeply suspicious of the United States and its intentions toward Iran.

Khamenei is believed to favour Rouhani’s main challenger, the hard-line candidate Ebrahim Raisi, who has support from major clerical bodies, hard-liners in the establishment as well as allies of former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said turnout is expected to exceed 70 per cent. Some 56.4 million people out of a population of 80 million are eligible to vote.

Fazli said vote counting would commence after midnight and that the results would be announced “sooner” than in previous elections. In past elections, results were announced two days later.

Also Wednesday, Hassan Qashqavi, deputy foreign minister in charge of consular affairs and Iranian expatriates, said polling would also be held Friday for Iranian expatriates in 102 countries, including the U.S.

The largest number of polling stations — 55 — would be in America, where more than 1 million Iranians live, he said. In the 2013 election, 20 polling stations opened there for Iranian expats.

According to reports on opposition website Kalemeh.com, Iranian opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, who have been under house arrest since 2011 after they challenged Ahmadinejad’s 2009 re-election, each issued a statement supporting Rouhani.

In his 2013 campaign, Rouhani vowed to lift their house arrests but that promise remains to be fulfilled. Rouhani won the presidential election that year with nearly 51 per cent of the vote. Turnout for that vote was 73 per cent.

Last week, Iran’s official IRNA news agency published the results of a survey in which nearly 64 per cent of a 6,047 person sample group said they will be voting, while 20 per cent said they were undecided.

Historically, the more Iranians who cast ballots, the greater the chance a reformist or a moderate like Rouhani will be elected.

Besides Rouhani and his rival Raisi, two other candidates — Mostafa Hashemitaba, a pro-reform figure who previously ran for president in 2001, and Mostafa Mirsalim, a former culture minister — are in the race but are widely expected to drop out before polling starts.

At a rally in Raisi’s hometown of Mashhad on Wednesday, Rouhani urged the country’s powerful Revolutionary Guard and other armed forces to remain impartial in the election and keep their “distance from political games.” He also demanded that the state broadcasting company remain neutral.

Rouhani has increasingly criticized the Revolutionary Guard — most recently on Monday, when he said the paramilitary force was abusing public funds to bus Raisi’s supporters to his rallies.

And during a presidential debate last week, he accused the paramilitaries of seeking to sabotage the nuclear deal, pointing to the Revolutionary Guard’s launch of a ballistic missile bearing the words “Israel must be wiped out” in Hebrew in March 2016.

Later Wednesday, the Trump administration said it will extend sanctions relief for Iran granted under the nuclear deal but that it would also impose new and unrelated economic penalties over Iran’s ballistic missile activity. The decision came just before the Obama administration’s last six-month waiver was to expire.

By pairing the waiver of old sanctions with an announcement of new ones, the administration is trying to show it’s being tough on Iran even as it adheres to the nuclear deal for now. U.S. President Donald Trump has said he’s reviewing the deal’s future.

The new sanctions target Iranian military officials and others accused of supplying Iran with materials for ballistic missiles.</s>TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s supreme leader called on Wednesday for a high turnout in this week’s presidential election, urging voters to head to the polls and send a message to the United States — but stopped short of saying which candidate he prefers of the four remaining in the race.

In a televised speech, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the United States and its allies, including the “pathetic prime minister of the Zionist regime,” or Israel, are closely watching the vote on Friday.

He called the election a “great popular epic,” saying that while the region is “drowned in anxiety,” Iran is “peacefully and safely holding an election.”

“From the U.S. state apparatuses to European powers and regional countries aligned with America, to the pathetic prime minister of the Zionist regime, all are closely watching (the vote) and how and in what spirit” the Iranians will cast ballots, Khamenei said.

President Hassan Rouhani, a moderate, is seeking re-election in a vote that will largely serve as a referendum on his outreach to the West, which culminated in the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Under the accord, Iran agreed to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of some economic sanctions.

Despite the deal, Khamenei — Iran’s top decision-maker — remains deeply suspicious of the United States and its intentions toward Iran.

Khamenei is believed to favor Rouhani’s main challenger, the hard-line candidate Ebrahim Raisi, who has support from major clerical bodies, hard-liners in the establishment as well as allies of former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said turnout is expected to exceed 70 percent. Some 56.4 million people out of a population of 80 million are eligible to vote.

Fazli said vote counting would commence after midnight and that the results would be announced “sooner” than in previous elections. In past elections, results were announced two days later.

Also Wednesday, Hassan Qashqavi, deputy foreign minister in charge of consular affairs and Iranian expatriates, said polling would also be held Friday for Iranian expatriates in 102 countries, including the U.S.

The largest number of polling stations — 55 — would be in America, where more than 1 million Iranians live, he said. In the 2013 election, 20 polling stations opened there for Iranian expats.

According to reports on opposition website Kalemeh.com, Iranian opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, who have been under house arrest since 2011 after they challenged Ahmadinejad’s 2009 re-election, each issued a statement supporting Rouhani.

In his 2013 campaign, Rouhani vowed to lift their house arrests but that promise remains to be fulfilled. Rouhani won the presidential election that year with nearly 51 percent of the vote. Turnout for that vote was 73 percent.

Last week, Iran’s official IRNA news agency published the results of a survey in which nearly 64 percent of a 6,047 person sample group said they will be voting, while 20 percent said they were undecided.

Historically, the more Iranians who cast ballots, the greater the chance a reformist or a moderate like Rouhani will be elected.

Besides Rouhani and his rival Raisi, two other candidates — Mostafa Hashemitaba, a pro-reform figure who previously ran for president in 2001, and Mostafa Mirsalim, a former culture minister — are in the race but are widely expected to drop out before polling starts.

At a rally in Raisi’s hometown of Mashhad on Wednesday, Rouhani urged the country’s powerful Revolutionary Guard and other armed forces to remain impartial in the election and keep their “distance from political games.” He also demanded that the state broadcasting company remain neutral.

Rouhani has increasingly criticized the Revolutionary Guard — most recently on Monday, when he said the paramilitary force was abusing public funds to bus Raisi’s supporters to his rallies.

And during a presidential debate last week, he accused the paramilitaries of seeking to sabotage the nuclear deal, pointing to the Revolutionary Guard’s launch of a ballistic missile bearing the words “Israel must be wiped out” in Hebrew in March 2016.

Later Wednesday, the Trump administration said it will extend sanctions relief for Iran granted under the nuclear deal but that it would also impose new and unrelated economic penalties over Iran’s ballistic missile activity. The decision came just before the Obama administration’s last six-month waiver was to expire.

By pairing the waiver of old sanctions with an announcement of new ones, the administration is trying to show it’s being tough on Iran even as it adheres to the nuclear deal for now. President Donald Trump has said he’s reviewing the deal’s future.

The new sanctions target Iranian military officials and others accused of supplying Iran with materials for ballistic missiles.</s>Eshaw Jahangiri has promised to vote for Hassan Rouhani, who is running for his second term (Reuters)</s>Iran's first Vice President and presidential election candidate Eshaq Jahangiri announced on Tuesday to withdraw from the presidential race in order to back incumbent President Hassan Rouhani.

"I will use all my power to support Rouhani and to support his programmes," Jahanigiri said in a statement, according to the official IRNA news agency.

Jahanigiri, the reformist hopeful, urged all his supporters to vote for Rouhani, said the report.

He further expressed hope that Rouhani will win the election by a landslide so he could improve the country's future.

Concerns over "democracy, freedom, economy and the country's progress" will enable officials to overcome difficulties, he added.

On Monday, Tehran's conservative Mayor, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, also said that he withdrew from the presidential race to back another conservative candidate, Ebrahim Raisi.

On April 21, of the 1,636 registered candidates, six qualified, including three principalists, better known as conservatives, as well as two centrists and one reformist, to compete for the four-year presidential term.

Raisi is Rouhani's sole major conservative rival who hopes not to lose his current sovereignty.

Over 56 million Iranians are eligible electorates for the May 19 election.</s>Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15By Khalid Kazimov – Trend:Mehdi Karoubi, an Iranian opposition leader, has expressed his support for incumbent President Hassan Rouhani in the country’s May 19 presidential election.At a meeting with his family members, the opposition figure who has been under house arrest since 2011, has called on Iranians to participate in the election on Friday, opposition news website Saham news reported."I will vote for Rouhani," Karoubi told his family members at the meeting.Karoubi along with Mir Hossein Mousavi and his spouse Zahra Rahnavard have been under house arrest, following the 2009 post-election unrests in Iran.The country goes to the polls on May 19 to elect president in which moderate Rouhani backed by reformists is seeking re-election against conservative rivals.
In an expected event, Eshaq Jahangiri withdraws his candidacy and urges his supporters to vote for incumbent president Hassan Rouhani.