‘Velayati will not withdraw candidacy in favor of other principlist candidates’

TEHRAN,June 3(MNA) ––The spokesman for the Front of the Followers of the Line of the Imam and the Leader said on Sunday that Ali Akbar Velayati will not withdraw his presidential candidacy in favor of other principlist candidates. “Mr. Velayati… has told us that he will not withdraw in favor of anybody,” Kamal Sajjadi told reporters at the Velayati campaign office in Tehran on Sunday. At first, two members of the “coalition of 2+1”, which consisted of Velyati, Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel and Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, were going to withdraw in favor of the one who enjoys more public support. However, after the Guardian Council barred Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani from running for president the coalition changed its policy and neither of the three principlist candidates seems to be ready to withdraw in favor of the other. Hadad-Adel also told reporters on Sunday that there is no need to abide by the “coalition of 2+1” because the situation has changed, an indirect reference to the fact that Rafsanjani was banned from contesting the presidential post. “What caused us to form a coalition is no longer felt. We changed our approach in accordance with the situation and this change of approach will not result in a failure of principlists” in the presidential race, Haddad Adel stated. The Front of the Followers of the Line of the Imam and the Leader, which consists of 17 principlist groups, has announced its support for Velayati, a former foreign minister who currently serves as senior policy advisor to the Supreme Leader. Velayati was foreign minister in the administrations of Mir Hossein Mousavi and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.