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| Larijani wins backing of Iranian hardliners for presidential election |
| 2005-03-30 |
| A security adviser to Iran's supreme leader said on Monday he had won the backing of hardline parties for his presidential election bid, the official IRNA news agency reported. The hardline support for Ali Larijani, who has spoken out against Tehran's efforts to defuse international concern about its nuclear programme through diplomacy, automatically makes him a leading contender for the June 17 vote. Moderate conservative Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has also hinted he may make a comeback bid for the job he held from 1989 to 1997. Incumbent Mohammad Khatami, a pro-reform cleric, is ineligible to stand for a third consecutive term. "The Fundamentalists' Coordination Council, in its latest decision, has chosen me as their main candidate in the next presidential elections," Larijani told IRNA. The Council, a collection of more than a dozen conservative parties, had agonised for weeks over the selection of a consensus candidate. Former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, former Revolutionary Guards Chief Mohsen Rezai, hardline parliamentarian Ahmad Tavakoli and Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were also considered for the conservative ticket. Most of them have said they would stand as independents if they did not receive the Council's backing. Larijani, 50, stepped down as head of Iran's state broadcasting monopoly IRIB last year. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei immediately appointed him as one of his representatives on Iran's top security decision-making body, the Supreme National Security Council. In November he likened Tehran's decision to freeze sensitive nuclear work while it tried to reach a negotiated settlement with the European Union to "trading a pearl for a candy bar". Public interest in the elections is so far muted with many disillusioned with politics after eight years of Khatami's limited success in pushing through reforms in the face of hardline opposition. A low turnout is expected to favour conservative candidates whose supporters are more likely to vote, political analysts say. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 Since the position is utterly ceremonial - or at least it has been with Khatami, this seems of little import. If Larijani will now be another voice joining Iran's Foreign Policy Ball of Confusion, well, same thing. The President, the Legislature, both are poofta ponce plushy puppets. Pfeh. tick... tock... Mullahwankers. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-03-30 7:39:19 AM |