London: Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf quit the Iranian presidential race on Monday, backing instead hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi in Friday’s vote.
Qalibaf, a former Revolutionary Guards commander and police chief, was one of the main challengers to President Hassan Rouhani who is seeking a second term.
In the last election four years ago, Qalibaf finished second but with just 16.5 per cent of the vote. Rouhani, who pledged to reduce Iran’s international isolation and grant more freedoms at home, averted a second round by winning just over 50 per cent.
This time around, establishment conservative hardliners who want to unseat Rouhani are mainly placing their trust in Ebrahim Raisi, a jurist and Shiite cleric who studied at the feet of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
They were not happy that the maverick Tehran mayor was standing again and thereby raising the risk of splitting the anti-Rouhani vote.
“I should take an important decision to keep the unity of revolutionary forces,” Qalibaf said in a statement published in state media. “I ask all my supporters around the country to use all their capacity to help my brother, Mr Ebrahim Raisi, win the election.” Raisi and Qalibaf were following the same campaign tactics, criticising Rouhani’s economic record and his policy of detente with the West. Both presidential hopefuls jumped on the country’s unemployment rate, which rose to 12.4 per cent last year, up 1.4 per cent from the previous year.
Raisi and Qalibaf promised to create five to six million jobs in their first term if elected and to triple the monthly cash handouts to Iran’s poor, but drew criticism for not explaining how they would fund such programmes.
Rouhani told supporters on Monday he needed a stronger mandate to liberalise Iranian society.
