2021 Elections – Mohsen Mehralizadeh: Raisi Should Either Step Down from Judiciary or Withdraw from Candidacy

Only eighteen days remain before the presidential election, yet disagreement still exists among officials over the timing of the debates.

• Disagreement Between Election Headquarters and State Media Over Debate Schedule

While the spokesman for the election headquarters announced a change in the debate schedule based on the “Interior Minister’s arrangement” due to overlap with the national football team’s matches in Bahrain, the public relations office of state media says the program remains unchanged and they will not alter the debate schedule.

According to ISNA, the public relations director of state media stated that the debates and World Cup qualifying football matches do not overlap, explaining that “this issue was carefully considered from the beginning.”

The broad disqualification of well-known figures who held high positions in the Islamic Republic by the Guardian Council, as well as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s support for this decision, has prompted protests from reformists and even some conservatives in recent days, as well as warnings from senior officials about the consequences of consolidating power in one hand.

• Promises Made by Election Candidates

Mohsen Rezaei, a candidate in the thirteenth presidential election, says that by “removing seven zeros” from the currency, “without any effort,” Iran “will have one of the world’s most valuable currencies.”

Mr. Rezaei, who was the secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council, previously served as commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps for 16 years and has been a candidate in presidential elections multiple times but lost each time.

Amirhossein Qazi-zadeh Hashemi, who previously mentioned allocating 500 million tomans to each couple for marriage and housing, this time promised to give “a monthly package of 300 thousand tomans to each Iranian” and his government “will bring peace to the people.”

However, Abdolnasser Hemmati urged people not to pay attention to “populist slogans” of candidates, since “we even have difficulty paying employees’ salaries.”

Emphasizing that “sanctions have the most important impact on the country’s economy,” he said he ran for president because this is the “last opportunity we have to solve people’s problems.”

Mr. Hemmati was the governor of the Central Bank, but he was removed from office on Sunday.

Alireza Zakani said “I want to create conditions in which people direct their liquidity toward the capital market,” but he did not explain how he intends to do this.

Ebrahim Raisi, another presidential candidate who is currently the head of the judiciary, stated that “police and judicial measures against uncontrolled imports and smuggling are insufficient; the roots of the mafia must be dried up through the government.”

However, Mohsen Mehralizadeh proposed that Ebrahim Raisi either resign from his position as head of the judiciary or withdraw from the presidential candidacy. He addressed Raisi saying: “How do you allow yourselves to set guidelines and define red lines for presidential candidates?”

Source: Voice of America