Ebrahim Raisi arrived unannounced at the Tehran Stock Exchange and Securities Hall this morning and held impromptu meetings with officials and senior figures there. Raisi is believed to be the second high-ranking official in the history of the Islamic Republic to visit the Tehran Stock Exchange after the late former President Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Reformist Faezeh Hashemi said that her late father, former President Ali Akbar Rafsanjani Hashemi, would have supported Abdol-Naser Hemmati in this election. Faezeh Hashemi was a potential candidate in this election but announced she would not run in April as she considered the result a foregone conclusion.
The first campaign documentary of Mohsen Mehr-Alizadeh aired tonight, although parts of the original were censored. The removed sections amounted to 5-6 minutes of the 27 minute documentary, and included speeches by former Presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, and by disqualified candidates Mostafa Tajzadeh and Masoud Pezeshkian. The documentary focused on the disqualification of candidates and the backlash by voters. Mehr-Alizadeh had anticipated this censorship and had leaked a trailer earlier in the evening which included the sections that were eventually cut.
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Watch the uncensored version on YouTube
Reformist candidate and son of the late former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mohsen Hashemi, told ISNA that he did not believe in two term presidencies, saying that the project of being re-elected causes Presidents to break their promises rather than fulfilling their program in one term. Hashemi also added that the inefficiency of the Iranian government lies in its incoherent power structure, which allows competing streams to undermine each other. Hashemi said the next government needs to use their term to resolve these inconsistencies and create greater coordination between the different arms of government.
A member of the Executives of Construction Party, a key Reformist group, told IRNA that the son of former President Rafsanjani, Mohsen Hashemi, has two conditions for running for president: a guarantee that the Guardian Council will approve his candidacy, and united support from all Reformist factions. Both conditions seem unlikely to be confirmed. Hashemi’s sister, Faezeh Hashemi, had also raised the prospect of running although she recently said she will not participate.
Prominent female candidate, Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani, told Hamshahri that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had asked her to run on his ticket as his Vice-President, but she had refused because of the events of the 2009 Election, particularly as Ahmadinejad had repeatedly insulted her father, former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, during that period. Hashemi said that “people might change, but if Mr. Ahmadinejad had changed, he should have first apologized” before approaching her.
Effat Marashi, the widow of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and the mother of female candidate Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani, shares her thoughts on the prospects of Iranian woman becoming President. In a veiled challenge to the Guardian Council, which has always disqualified female candidates, she stated, “if there is a woman who has the power to do this important job, she has the right to become President and no one can take that right away from her”. When asked if she thought a woman could run the country, Marashi swiftly replied “There is nothing that women can’t do”.