Iran candidates sign up for presidential race

Source: Xinhua | 05-09-2009 07:54

by Xinhua writer Liang Youchang

TEHRAN, May 8 (Xinhua) -- The two prominent conservative candidates -- the incumbent president and a former Revolutionary Guards chief -- formally registered their candidacy on Friday for the June 12 Iranian presidential election.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad waves to reporters as he comes to register his candidacy for the upcoming presidential elections at the interior ministry in Tehran on May 8, 2009. Ahmadinejad was the second of the four leading candidates expected to stand in the June 12 election to formally register. (Xinhua/Ahmad Halabisaz)

"I must do my best to make this election the best one and take part in it," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told reporters after going through the registration procedure in the Interior Ministry's registration center.

Ahmadinejad, who was elected president in 2005, had not officially announced his election bid until his registration on Friday, though one of his senior aides said in January that the hard-liner president would seek a second term.

Many observers believed that no other candidates so far in the conservative camp could threaten Ahmadinejad's presidential bid.

Earlier on Friday, Iran's former Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Mohsen Rezaei, a moderate conservative, also formally registered his candidacy for the presidential race.

Speaking to reporters after his registration, Rezaei criticized Ahmadinejad's management of the economy, saying the country's economy needed "fundamental changes."

"We could not enjoy desirable economic growth because of the Iranian economy's low efficiency and its declining trend," said Rezaei, who is now secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council.

Rezaei, who was IRGC commander from 1981 to 1997, also ran as a candidate in the last presidential election in June 2005, but withdrew just two days before the election.