Iranian politicians comment on presidential election outcome

TEHRAN,June 15(MNA) – In separate interviews with the Mehr News Agency on Friday, a number of Iranian political figures commented on the outcome of the presidential election which was held on the same day. Former Majlis speaker Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri said that he believed that the outcome of the presidential vote would be determined in the first round of the election. He also said that the candidates were obligated to abide by the law after the announcement of the election results. Former Majlis speaker Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel, who dropped out of the race just ahead of election day, said that it was likely that the election would run to a second round. Former vice president Sadeq Vaezzadeh predicted that a pro-reform candidate and a principlist candidate would contest a run-off election. Former MP Hassan Ghafourifard also said that it was more than likely that the election would go to a run-off. In addition, an unnamed member of the Guardian Council told the Mehr News Agency that the election outcome was unpredictable. Hassan Rohani, who formerly served as the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator and who has been endorsed by Expediency Council Chairman Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and former reformist president Mohammad Khatami, and Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, who is the current mayor of Tehran, are widely believed to be the front runners in the election, which many political analysts believe will go to a run-off. In the Iranian system, if no candidate receives 50 percent of the vote, the two top candidates must face off in a run-off election.