Iran`s Election fervor approaches climax

TEHRAN,June 13(MNA) – The eyes of the world are on Iran as it prepares to hold its 11th presidential election on Friday, with Iranians hoping a competent president who will offer a beacon of hope for the future of the country will be elected. Friday’s presidential election will be the Islamic Republic’s first since 2009, when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was reelected. Ahmadinejad was constitutionally barred from running for a third four-year term, and Iran’s top electoral supervisory body, the Guardian Council, approved the qualifications of eight candidates. Former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad ally Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei were the most prominent presidential hopefuls who were banned from contesting the election. Two of the approved candidates, pro-reformist Mohammad Reza Aref and principlist Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel, later dropped out of the race. The six remaining candidates, who were chosen from among 686 hopefuls, are Hassan Rohani and Mohsen Rezaei, who are both centrist candidates, Ali Akbar Velayati, Saeed Jalili, and Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, who are principlist candidates, and Mohammad Gharazi, an independent candidate. Rezaei is the secretary of the Expediency Council and was the commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps for 16 years, from 1981 to 1997. Velayati is the senior foreign policy advisor of the Supreme Leader. He served as Iran’s foreign minister for 16 years during the administrations of former prime minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi and former president Rafsanjani. Jalili is the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and also acts as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator in the talks with the six major powers.