Candidates seeking to expand voter base ahead of July 5 runoff
Election fever is heating up in Iran as more officials and political parties threw their weight behind the two presidential candidates ahead of the Friday run-off election.
Ali Tayebnia, economy minister under former president Hassan Rouhani, held a meeting with the Reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian and supported him in the upcoming election.
Meanwhile, a group of religious scholars, clerics and pundits in a statement on Monday supported Pezeshkian who secured a narrow lead over Conservative candidate Saeed Jalili in the first round of election which was held on June 28.
The Moderate former president
Rouhani, who had the support of Reformists during his tenure, released a statement and called for people to participate in the second round of the election.
“Today we have two candidates, one of whom considers sanctions as a blessing and the other one considers them as a disaster. One considers disconnection from the world as an opportunity, and the other calls it the loss of opportunities,” the statement said.
Rouhani underlined that Iranians are now facing two choices. The first is participation or boycotting elections and the second choice is sanctions or interaction with the world.
On the other side, Justice-seekers Party and Motalefeh (Islamic Coalition Party) in separate statements supported the Conservative candidate Saeed Jalili for the presidency.
Campaigning continued on Monday as both candidates met their supporters in different cities before they attend the first televised debate in the second round.
Addressing his supporters in the northeastern city of Gorgan, Jalili said that the country should have extensive and constructive interaction with the world, not minimal interaction and from a position of weakness.
In a meeting focused on women and girls, the Reformist candidate emphasized that the capacity of Iranian girls should not be used to achieve their rights, but it should be used for the development of the country.
The candidates began their campaigning on Sunday after the Guardian
Council confirmed the results of the June 28 election.
Winner of the competition will replace the late president Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash last month.
Pezeshkian received 10,415,991 votes while Jalili gained 9,473,298.
Conservative parliamentary speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and former interior minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the two other candidates, garnered 3,383,340 and 206,397 votes
respectively.
Iran’s presidential race began with six candidates but Alireza Zakani, the current mayor of Tehran, and Amir Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi withdrew from the race on the eve of the election day and have thrown their weight behind Jalili.