The field of candidates in Iran’s presidential election thinned out yesterday, two days before the vote in which a victory by ultraconservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi is widely seen as a foregone conclusion.
Three of the seven men who had been approved to enter the lacklustre race pulled out, further bolstering the position of Raisi, 60, in a vote expected to see record low turnout.
Reformist Mohsen Mehralizadeh was first to leave the race, followed by two ultraconservatives, Alireza Zakani and Saeed Jalili, who both pledged their support for the frontrunner.
The election comes as economically ailing and pandemic-hit Iran holds talks with world powers to revive the battered 2015 nuclear deal and seeks to end a punishing U.S. sanctions regime imposed under former President Donald Trump.
The vote will choose a successor to Iran’s moderate President Hassan Rouhani, whose administration had agreed the deal. This year, he cannot run again, having served two consecutive four-year terms, and leaves office in August.
Ultimate power in Iran, where a revolution toppled the monarchy in 1979, lies with the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but the president has significant influence on issues from industrial policy to foreign affairs.
The expected winner, Raisi — the country’s judiciary chief and a cleric sporting a black turban and religious robe — has been mentioned in Iranian media as a possible successor to Khamenei.
Raisi belongs to the ultraconservative camp that most deeply distrusts the United States, labelled the “Great Satan” or the “Global Arrogance” in the Islamic republic, and which has harshly criticised Rouhani since the nuclear deal started to unravel.
The supreme leader, in a televised speech, urged voters to come out in droves to elect “a powerful president” — warning that “the Satanic power centres of the world” are trying to undermine the ballot.
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