Manouchehr Mottaki of the Unity Council, a large Principalist organisation, said in an interview that Ebrahim Raisi is showing more signs that he will nominate than he did a month ago. Raisi, the Chief Justice of Iran, is considered the Principalist’s preferred candidate, although the clerical faction have also sought Raisi as their candidate. Raisi to date has rejected claims that he will run.
Conservative parliamentarian and nuclear scientist Fereydoun Abbasi today announced that he will nominate for President, with the slogan of “Elite Government”. Although associated with the Principalist faction, Abbasi announced he was running as an independent. Abbasi served as the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, and narrowly escaped assassination in 2010.
Prominent Reformist politician Mostafa Hashemi-Taba gave his bleak assessment of the electoral situation in an interview. He stated that neither the Reformists nor the Principalists had strong candidates, and the electorate does not seem that engaged this time. Hashemi-Taba said that while Ebrahim Raisi is something of a favourite, that he will only win if there is a poor turnout.
The Secretary General of the Zainab Society, Azam Haji Abbasi, stated that the role of women in Presidential elections should not be limited to voting. She criticised the Principalist Unity Council’s decision to not nominate a woman among their candidates, stating that it was to their detriment. Abbasi added that the Guardian Council must clearly define the constitutional term “rajol-e siasi”, which has been used to exclude women candidates, and that the Guardian Council declare unambiguously whether a woman can be President or not.
The Secretary General of the Islamic Coalition Party, Asadollah Badamchian, announced he would be one of five candidates nominated by his party to run for President. Badamchian indicated that his nomination occurred after consultations with another key Principalist organisation, the Unity Council. The agreement is if one candidate from these organisations is a clear favourite, all other candidates will stand down and support them.
The Principalist Islamic Iranzamin Party today announced that they were nominating their Secretary General, Seyed Abolqasem Raufian, as their candidate for the Presidential election. Raufian represents a specific faction among Principalist parliamentarians whose Islamist ideology is centred on making members of society more religiously observant.
In a bizarre turn of events, senior parliamentary Principalist Ahmad Amirabadi announced on Twitter that he was not running for President. On Monday, Amirabadi declared that he was resigning from the Presidium of the Parliament in order to register for the presidential election. Today on Twitter, he apologised saying that what he meant to say was that he was resigning to avoid conflict of interest as he intends to be involved in the campaign in one capacity or another.
Esteemed political scientist, Prof Sadegh Zibakalam of the University of Tehran, outlined his analysis on the four main Principalist candidates: Ebrahim Raisi, Mohsen Rezaei, Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf and Saeed Jalili. Zibakalam argued that Raisi would be a clear favourite as he is the candidate most likely to win at this stage, however it is not clear if he will accept an invitation from the two prominent Princpalist organisations, the Coalition Council and the Unity Council, to run. In Zibakalam’s view, the Principalist choice is between Raisi and Qalibaf at the moment, and other candidates like Saeed Mohammad, Ali Nikzad, Ezzatollah Zarghami and Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh, stand no chance of being supported by the Principalist bloc. For Saeed Mohammad, the problem is that he is too much like a young Ahmadinejad, and the Principalist camp of 2021 is not going to make the same choice as the did in 2005. However, Zibakalam added that if Raisi does not run, Saeed Mohammad would still pose a threat to whomever the Princpalists chose, effectively splitting the conservative vote.
Ahmad Amirabadi Farahani, yesterday announced that he was resigning from the Presidium of the Parliament to run for President. The Presidium is a 12-person body of parliamentary members elected annually by their peers to manage parliamentary business. Amirabadi is a former officer in the IRGC and a prominent Principalist.
Laleh Eftekhari, a former member of Parliament and member of the Women’s Advisory Council in the Principalist Unity Council, yesterday stated that among Iranian women, Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi had the qualifications to be President, having served in the cabinet previously but that “she herself must be willing to take this step” before Principalists would consider supporting her candidacy. In the same interview, Eftekhari expressed support for Ebrahim Raisi as a unifying candidate.