Iran’s Defense Minister to Run for President

Published May 6th, 2001 - 03:00 GMT

Iran’s Defense Minister Vice-Admiral Ali Shamkhani has stepped in as a new candidate for the June 8 presidential elections, reported the official Iranian news agency IRNA.

The agency said that Shamkhani went to the Ministry of the Interior on Sunday afternoon to personally register in the presidential race, only two days before the nominations are due to close.

Shamkhani, 46, declined to answer questions posed by reporters who were present at the State Electoral Headquarters at the ministry.

But he left with them a text on why he has decided to run in Iran's eighth presidential elections. The agency did not go into detail on the text.

According to the agency, a record number of candidates have registered.

The agency said that, with Shamkhani’s registration, 359 people have signed up for the elections, but “only a handful are expected to be cleared to run.”

Incumbent President Mohammad Khatami and several women are among the candidates.

Applications will be scrutinized by the Guardian Council.

In the last election in 1997, only four of the 230 or so applicants were endorsed by the Guardian Council -- the conservative body that vets candidates.

Among the prominent registrants is former labor minister Ahmad Tavakoli, who told IRNA that his goal “is to win the people's confidence through standing against a new wave of political opportunists."

The 50-year-old Tavakoli, a former MP close to the conservative camp, had earlier said he would run as an independent.

Other recent registrants are Ibrahim Asgharzadeh, a leading figure in the 1979 US embassy seizure; former MP Qassem Sholeh-Saadi; and vice-president Mostafa Hashemi-Taba, a founding member of the centrist Executives of Construction Party.

Hashemi-Taba earlier said he would run as an independent for the eighth race.

IRNA says that Khatami, whose decision to run the elections on Friday ended months of suspense, is widely expected to win a second term despite repeated setbacks to his campaign for greater freedom and democracy.

Certified candidates are to start their election campaigns on May 19 and continue to June 6, a total of 19 days, according to IRNA.

Under the country's elections law, an acceptable candidate must be "a political figure, of Iranian origin, of the official state religion (Islam), faithful to the cause of the Islamic Republic."

Some 42 million Iranians are eligible to vote, out of a population of 62 million – Albawaba.com