Iran\u2019s former president Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday threw his weight behind reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian, two days ahead of a snap presidential vote to replace the late Ebrahim Raisi.
\nRouhani, a moderate politician who preceded Raisi in office, said Pezeshkian could \u201cremove the shadow of sanctions\u201d that have battered the Iranian economy since the collapse of a landmark nuclear deal.
\n\u201cOn Friday, we should vote for someone who is determined to remove the shadow of sanctions from the Iranian people,\u201d Rouhani said in a video message published by the reformist Shargh daily, praising Pezeshkian\u2019s \u201chonesty\u201d and \u201cloyalty.\u201d
\nThe election was brought forward by Raisi\u2019s death in a helicopter crash last month.
\nRouhani, whose government had negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal with the United States and other powers, said Pezeshkian appeared \u201cdetermined to revive\u201d the accord which fell through after Washington unilaterally withdrew from it in 2018, reimposing biting sanctions.
\nDiplomatic efforts have since faltered to revive the deal, which aimed to curb Tehran\u2019s nuclear activity in return for sanctions relief.
\nPezeshkian, 69, is an outspoken heart surgeon who has represented the northwestern city of Tabriz in parliament since 2008.
\nReformists remain faithful to Iran\u2019s theocratic rule but advocate detente with the West, economic reform, social liberalization and political pluralism. Their electoral strength remains uncertain as some voters believe they failed to deliver greater freedoms during their past tenures in power.
\nUnrest sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurdish woman, in custody in 2022, exposed a widening divide between reformists and their power base, after reformist leaders distanced themselves from demonstrators who demanded a \u201cregime change.\u201d
\nOther candidates in the running include conservative Tehran mayor Alireza Zakani, cleric Mostafa Pourmohammadi, and incumbent vice president Amirhossein Ghazizadeh-Hashemi, the ultraconservative head of the Martyrs\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iran\u2019s former president Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday threw his weight behind reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian, two days ahead of a snap presidential vote to replace the late Ebrahim Raisi. Rouhani, a moderate politician who preceded Raisi in office, said Pezeshkian could \u201cremove the shadow of sanctions\u201d that have battered the Iranian economy since the collapse …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26089,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-news-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26083"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26090,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26083\/revisions\/26090"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}