Iran hard-liner drops out of race, narrows field for allies

DUBAI: A conservative former Parliament speaker dropped out of the June 14 Iranian presidential election yesterday in a move to consolidate the hard-line vote and lessen the chances of an upset favoring a moderate candidate.
The 12-man Guardian Council, largely under the sway of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had already barred all but eight of the 686 people who registered as candidates, including pragmatic ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
That left four hard-liners, separated only by small differences on issues such as Iran’s nuclear stand-off with the West, facing a lone independent outsider and two relative moderates who may be able to generate popular support.
Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, a close adviser to Khamenei related to him by marriage, had been one of three so-called “Principlist” conservative candidates alongside Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati before announcing yesterday he was dropping out.
While he did not endorse any single candidate, Haddad-Adel urged voters to back his fellow Principlists, hinting that they were the ones also backed by Khamenei.
“With my withdrawal I ask the dear people to strictly observe the criteria of the Supreme Leader of the Revolution (Khamenei) when they vote for candidates,” Haddad-Adel said in a statement carried by the semi-official Mehr news agency.
“I advise the dear people to take a correct decision so that either a Principlist wins in the first round, or if the election runs to a second round, the competition be between two Principlists,” he said. Reformists, after two landslide presidential election wins in 1997 and 2001, said the 2009 results were rigged. Fearing a repeat, many of their supporters could stay home this time.
The only remaining moderates in the presidential race are cleric Hassan Rohani, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator under reformist president Mohamed Khatami, and the lack lustre Mohammad Reza Aref.