Page 21 - bne_np_May_19_2017

Eurasia
May 19, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 21
With President Rouhani’s economic record under attack from both Qalibaf and Raisi, the election campaign grew increasingly bitter and confrontational in the last week.
Qalibaf, who lost to Rouhani in 2013, had been insisting that he would not step aside in favour
of Raisi, although analysts say his eventual decision to quit might have proved unavoidable given that the main conservative parties and clerical bodies have thrown their support behind Raisi, a jurist and Shi’ite cleric who studied at the feet of Khamenei.
Having now called on conservative voters to unite behind Raisi, Qalibaf could conceivably upset forecasts that Rouhani was on course for
a comfortable victory.
A survey by the state-affiliated Iranian Students Polling Agency published last week had moderate cleric Rouhani’s support at 42%, hardliner
Raisi’s at 27% and Qalibaf’s at 25%. Three other candidates, who are polling in the low single digits, remain in the contest. More than 50% of the vote is needed to claim the presidency in the first round. If no candidate breaks that threshold, the two top-placed candidates will face off in a second
round scheduled for a week after the first vote.
In announcing his decision to back out of
the contest on May 15, Qalibaf criticised the president’s “inefficient and impotent” cabinet.
A statement from him carried by Iranian media read: “I should take an important decision to
keep the unity of revolutionary forces. I ask all
my supporters around the country to use all their capacity to help my brother, Mr Ebrahim Raisi, win the election.”
In the wake of Qalibaf’s withdrawal, Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, told Bloomberg
that it’s not a given that most Qalibaf supporters will automatically switch to Raisi. “They are both from the conservative camp but draw on different constituencies. Qalibaf speaks more to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and security apparatus, Raisi more to the traditional conservative”
she said.
Raisi faces having to reach out to a wider conservative base in the next few days, Bassiri Tabrizi added, but noted that things are “definitely more difficult for Rouhani now. We cannot take the renewal of his mandate for granted.”
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