Esfandiar Rahim Mashai has appealed to Iran’s Supreme Leader to let him join the race for president after his disqualification by the Guardian Council.
The Mehr News Agency reports that Mashai’s campaign chief has announced that recent statements about Saeed Jalili being the favoured candidate of the Ahmadinejad administration are false. He added that Mashai has called on Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei to reconsider his disqualification, and his supporters are hopeful that the letter will bring about a change.
Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, Ahmadinejad’s top aide, was disqualified by the Guardian Council from running in the election. Some sources have identified Saeed Jalili, one of the eight candidates approved by the Council, as a possible substitute for the Ahmadinejad camp.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his supporters have fallen out of favour with the conservative camp and have been referred to in recent years as the “deviant movement.” Ahmadinejad has told his supporters that they should be patient, promising that the Supreme Leader would resolve the issue of Mashai’s disqualification.
Meanwhile, Ayatollah Khamenei has shown no reaction to the disqualifications by the council, and the elections are set for Friday June 14.
Of the eight approved candidates, Gholamali Haddad Adel has already withdrawn in favour of other conservative candidates, and for the reformist camp, Mohammadreza Aref has withdrawn in favour of Hassan Rohani.
