TEHRAN: The eight candidates running for president are to stage a televised debate on Friday, with the ailing economy topping the agenda, as Iran’s spiritual guide Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for a clean vote.
Campaigning for the June 14 presidential poll officially kicked off last week after Iran’s electoral watchdog, the Guardians Council, approved the eight — including several figures close to Khamenei — from a field of nearly 700 would-be candidates. Two main contenders were disqualified.
The campaign has so far been mostly confined to short provincial tours and appearances on state television and radio, rather than the lively street rallies by supporters of candidates in the 2009 presidential election that gave Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second four-year term.
The Guardians Council has barred moderate ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad’s close ally Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie. The debate on Friday, the first of three, is expected to take the form of a Q&A session, with Iran’s ailing and sanctions-hit economy expected to top the agenda.
The run-up to the 2009 election, which led to anti-regime protests over voter fraud charges, produced heated exchanges between Ahmadinejad and his pro-reform opponents, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, in live face-to-face debates on state television.
Khamenei warned the candidates against creating tensions. “The candidates should refrain from tarnishing their opponents and the realities of the society just to attract votes,” he told a group of lawmakers.
This year’s campaign has been low-key. Street rallies are banned, according to security officials, and candidates have yet to roll out election posters or banners, even in major cities. “I have not yet received many orders to print posters or banners for the presidential election,” said Ali, 32, owner of a major printing house in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
AFP
