Page 7 - IRANRptMay21

2.2 220 Iranian MPs ask defeated hardline 2017 candidate Raisi to run for president
Some 220 Iranian MPs have officially asked Judiciary Chief Justice Ibrahim Raisi to run for president in the June election, ILNA reported on April 25.
Touted as potentially the next supreme leader of the Islamic Republic and known for his hardline views, conservative principlist Raisi, has the second most important role in the country’s power structure. Raisi lost the 2017 presidential election to incumbent and pragmatic moderate politician Hassan Rouhani, by 57% to 38% of the vote. However, there is support for the idea that Raisi could unite the fractured hardliners in the country to counter a potential bid from reformist candidates, one of which could be Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who has previously hinted at throwing his hat in the ring. Zarif is widely favoured by liberals and the young.
The formal call for Raisi to stand is likely a blow to Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, who has positioned himself as the third most powerful elected politician as speaker of parliament.
On April 24, 100 MPs demanded transparency from Qalibaf over allegations that figures in the state budget bill were altered days after parliament approved it.
In their letter to Raisi, the MPs wrote: “Attention is given to the fields of science and technology, but unfortunately, the macroeconomic, industrial, social and even cultural indicators of the country are not in a good condition and especially so in the fields of livelihood and people's lives where serious problems are seen.”
The letter goes on to say: “The emergence of such conditions has put heavy pressure on the deprived and oppressed classes and even the middle classes of society, the continuation of which could lead to deepening public dissatisfaction and falling social capital.”
The MPs backing Raisi said he has all the qualities that the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “believed a president should have”. Among the hardline camps that might unite under his candidacy in the eyes of the lawmakers is that of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which wields significant power in Iran behind the scenes.
Raisi met with IRGC Al-Quds foreign expeditionary forces in a ceremony in Tehran on April 25.
Separately, Iran’s foreign ministry was on April 25 responding to a leaked audio recording of an interview in which Zarif criticised the dominance of the assassinated IRGC commander Qassem Suleimani in Iranian diplomacy, and admitted his own influence over Iranian foreign policy was sometimes zero.
Meanwhile, fears grew that a covert tit-for-tat battle at sea, in which Iran and Israel appear to have been attacking each other’s commerical shipping, could worsen after at least three people died when an Iranian fuel tanker was attacked off Syria’s coast on April 24.
7 IRAN Country Report May 2021 www.intellinews.com