Mohsen Mehralizadeh Withdraws from Presidential Election
Iranian media reported on Wednesday, June 16, that Mohsen Mehralizadeh, one of the candidates in Iran’s presidential election, has withdrawn from the competition.
IRNA and Fars news agencies stated that Mohsen Mehralizadeh submitted a letter to the Interior Ministry announcing his withdrawal from continued participation in the presidential election.
Ali Tajrania, spokesman for Mohsen Mehralizadeh’s election headquarters, confirmed his withdrawal from the presidential election process, saying: “Mr. Mohsen Mehralizadeh has written a letter to the Interior Ministry and formally announced his withdrawal from continued participation in the election.”
According to ISNA, Ali Tajrania added: “An official statement on this matter will be released within hours.”
Mohsen Mehralizadeh’s and Abdolnaser Hemmati’s positions are close to reformists; however, the Reformist Front had previously announced it would not have a candidate in this round and did not support Abdolnaser Hemmati in Monday evening’s voting.
The Iranian presidential election will be held on June 28, and with Mohsen Mehralizadeh’s withdrawal, six other candidates remain in the competition.
Saeed Jalili, Mohsen Rezaei Mirghaed, Ebrahim Raisi, Alireza Zakani, Seyyed Amir Hossein Ghazi-zadeh Hashemi, and Abdolnaser Hemmati are the six candidates for the thirteenth presidential term.
Earlier, news was released that Alireza Zakani was withdrawing from his candidacy in favor of Ebrahim Raisi. However, on Sunday, a spokesman for Zakani’s headquarters denied this news.
Meanwhile, the spokesman for the country’s election headquarters said on Wednesday that the results of the 1400 presidential election will be announced by noon on Saturday, June 29.
Ismail Mousavi told Channel One: “In the past, we were in direct contact with the polling stations from the Interior Ministry, and each polling station’s minutes were immediately visible at the headquarters. In this round, the results and minutes from the polling stations will be sent simultaneously to the Interior Ministry and the Guardian Council, which will accelerate and consolidate the compilation and announcement of results. Therefore, our prediction is that we will announce the presidential election results before Saturday noon.”
In the 1400 presidential election, more than 592 people had registered, and the Guardian Council only approved the qualifications of seven of them.
A number of former and current officials of the Islamic Republic, including Ali Larijani, former parliament speaker, Eshaq Jahangiri, first deputy to Hassan Rouhani, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former president, Ali Motahari, former deputy speaker of parliament, and Mostafa Tajzadeh, deputy interior minister in Mohammad Khatami’s first government, were disqualified.
Some political activists and figures of the Green Movement, including Abolfazl Qadiani, families of those killed in November 2019 protests, and victims of the Ukrainian plane downing, have also called for a boycott of the election.
Source: Radio Farda
