Ebrahim Raisi is among five candidates vying for the presidency
Robin Wright, New Yorker: Iran Moves Toward a One-Party State
The Supreme Leader is willing to risk the legitimacy of an election to consolidate monolithic hard-line control.
Two years after a popular uprising ended two millennia of dynastic rule in Iran, the revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini scolded the country’s squabbling politicians for “biting one another like scorpions.”
Four decades later, on the eve of a Presidential election, on Friday, Iranian politics are no less contentious.
At the first of three campaign debates, the former Revolutionary Guard commander Mohsen Rezaei vowed that his first act, if elected, would be to charge the leading centrist candidate, Abdolnaser Hemmati, who was seated a few feet away, with betraying the revolution.
“If I become President, I will ban Hemmati and a number of other officials of the Rouhani government from leaving the country, and I will prove in court which treacherous roles they played,” he said, during a three-hour televised debate with six other candidates.
Rezaei, who is making his fourth run for President, has been popularly mocked as “General Botox,” owing to the recent transformation of his face. The atmosphere was so fraught that Hemmati, a former Central Bank chief who holds a black belt in karate, made an appeal to a third candidate, the judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi. “Mr. Raisi, can you give me assurances that no legal action will be taken against me after this event?” It was hard to tell whether Hemmati was joking or serious—or both.
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Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- June 17, 2021
What to Watch for in the Iranian Elections -- Michael Rubin, National Interest
This man will be Iran’s next president. Who is he? -- GZero
Iran election: How will it shape Tehran's relations with the West? -- Shabnam von Hein, DW
Between the lines of the Biden-Putin summit -- Pepe Escobar, Asia Times
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Biden-Putin summit: Who won and who lost? Experts offer key takeaways -- Morgan Phillips, FOX News
Assessing the Results of the Biden-Putin Summit -- National Interest
Putin Suddenly Looks Very Small -- Kevin Baron, Defense One
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Peru election: Why has no winner been declared? -- BBC
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