Speculation rose today that number of disqualified candidates may be parachuted into the role of Mayor of Tehran, with Saeed Mohammad at the top of the list. The rumoured names also included Hossein Dehghan and Rostam Ghasemi both of whom, like Saeed Mohammad, have given their support to Ebrahim Raisi since standing down or being disqualified. Local council elections will take place throughout Iran on the same day as the Presidential election.
Hossein Dehghan announced in an open letter that he was standing aside and directing his support to Ebrahim Raisi.
Six of the 592 candidates who nominated between May 11 and May 15, all of whom are high-profile are on United States or European Union sanctions lists. Frontrunner Ebrahim Raisi tops the list, alongside Fereydoun Abbasi, Hossein Dehghan, Abol-Hassan Firuzabadi, Rostam Ghasemi and Ezatollah Zarghami.
Former IRGC Air-Force Officer and former Minister of Defence (2013-2017), Hossein Dehghan, arrived at registrations today in a suit rather than military uniform, and holding hands with his wife. Declaring the end of celebrity politics, Dehghan said “I come today with a real understanding of the demands and anger of the people, and with plans for the problems of the society”.
Prominent IRGC candidate Hossein Dehghan has announced that he will register for candidacy on Tuesday, the first day of nominations, under the slogan “Government of Construction”. Registrations begin on Tuesday May 11 and close on Saturday May 15, with vetted candidates officially announced on the 26-27 of May.
A music magazine has reported that the campaign manager of IRGC candidate Hossein Dehghan has approached three musicians about including their music and commissioning performances in support of his campaign. The musicians include two popular singers – Mohsen Chavoshi and Mostafa Ragheb – and classical Iranian musician Salar Aghili. According to the report, Chavoshi and Aghili had turned down the requests, but nothing is known about Ragheb’s response. In recent decades, candidates have sought the support of musicians, actors and other celebrities for their campaign.
Hossein Dehghan, a former IRGC Brigadier-General and advisor to the Supreme Leader, today weighed into the debate about IRGC candidates, stating that a person with an IRGC background is not a military candidate. Dehghan’s reasoning is that although the IRGC is a military corps, it is essentially a political organisation and its members are political actors upon enlistment whose service is “never independent of the social, political and economic aspects of the country…[therefore] they never enter the political arena from a military base as they have never been absent from the political scene”.