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Iran's Mohammad Reza Aref quits presidential race | Iran's Mohammad Reza Aref quits presidential race |
(about 1 hour later) | |
The sole reformist candidate in this week's Iranian presidential election, Mohammad Reza Aref, has dropped out of the race, his website says. | |
Mr Aref said the head of the reformist movement, former president Mohammad Khatami, had asked him to withdraw. | |
There have been recent calls for Mr Aref to quit in favour of moderate candidate Hassan Rowhani. | There have been recent calls for Mr Aref to quit in favour of moderate candidate Hassan Rowhani. |
Most of the six remaining candidates in the poll are conservatives close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. | Most of the six remaining candidates in the poll are conservatives close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. |
Conservative Gholam Ali Haddad Adel withdrew his name on Monday, urging people to vote for a conservative candidate though he did not endorse any individual. | |
Seen as completely loyal to Ayatollah Khamenei, he had been trailing in the polls and his withdrawal is not expected to have much impact on the voting outcome. | |
Mass protests | |
Mr Aref was a low-profile reformist who had shown reluctance at standing as a presidential candidate in the past. He had said that if Mr Khatami joined the 2013 election as a candidate, he would step aside. | |
"In consideration of Mr Khatami's explicit opinion, and the experiences of two past presidential elections, I declare my withdrawal from the election campaign," he said on Tuesday. | |
The move is likely to be seen as an attempt to bolster the reformist vote in favour of Hassan Rowhani, who has been running well in the polls recently. | |
Mr Rowhani - a former nuclear negotiator - won the official backing of Mr Khatami's advisory council on Monday. | |
Friday's election is the first since 2009, when reformists disputed the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. | |
Allegations of vote-rigging led to mass protests that saw the deaths of at least 30 people and the arrests of more than 1,000 people. | |
The two reformist candidates from 2009 - Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi - remain under house arrest. | |
Mr Khatami declined to stand, and another moderate - former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani - was disqualified from standing. | |
The original eight candidates for the presidential elections were approved by Iran's Guardian Council out of a list of more than 600 hopefuls. | |
Five were seen as conservatives professing absolute loyalty to Ayatollah Khamenei, while the three remaining candidates are described as cautious reformers. | |
Mr Ahmadinejad is constitutionally banned from standing for a third term as president. His protege Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei failed to get through vetting process. |