Mehralizadeh withdraws from Iranian presidential race

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Iranian presidential candidate Mohsen Mehralizadeh announced that he is withdrawing from the presidential race, informing Minister of Interior Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli of this decision.

Mehralizadeh is a reformist politician. His previous positions extended to the presidential terms of Rafsanjani, Khatami, and Rouhani. In 2005, he ran for the presidency, but received the fewest number of votes.

For his part, the head of the Expediency Council, Sadeq Larijani, called on Iranians to participate in the presidential elections, adding that "different attitudes and complaints should not forget the Iranians' general interests and the enemies' plans."

Abdolnasser Hemmati said Tuesday that a large part of the reformists support him and that he would be happy if Mehralizadeh withdrew in his favor.

ISNA, the Iranian Students News Agency, reported that Azar Mansouri, spokeswoman for the Reforms Front in Iran, said that the front's position on not supporting a candidate in these elections did not change.

With this, 6 candidates are running in the presidential race. They are Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raisi, Expediency Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaee, Expediency Council member Saeed Jalili, Head of the Shura Council’s Research Center Alireza Zakani, Shura Council Deputy Speaker Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi, and Central Bank Governor Abdolnasser Hemmati.

The head of the Iranian Ministry of Interior elections headquarters, Jamal Araf, said in a press conference Monday that "according to online polls, 37-47% of Iranian people will vote in these elections, and there are 59,310,307 people eligible to vote."