Iran Presidential Poll Campaign Makes Low-Key Kick-Off

Iranian judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi submits his candidacy for the country’s presidential election in Tehran on May 15, 2021. (AFP)
Iranian judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi submits his candidacy for the country’s presidential election in Tehran on May 15, 2021. (AFP)
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Iran Presidential Poll Campaign Makes Low-Key Kick-Off

Iranian judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi submits his candidacy for the country’s presidential election in Tehran on May 15, 2021. (AFP)
Iranian judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi submits his candidacy for the country’s presidential election in Tehran on May 15, 2021. (AFP)

Iran's presidential election campaign officially kicked off on Friday, without fanfare and in an atmosphere of indifference as many say the result is a foregone conclusion.

On the streets of the capital Tehran, for now just occasional posters urge Iranians to vote on June 18 with a "single voice", for the future of an "eternal Iran".

Hamidreza, a 41-year-old engineer, said he was hesitant about voting for the moment.

"I don't even know if I'll vote or not," he said.

Like others AFP spoke to, he declined to provide his surname.

The vote comes amid widespread discontent over a deep economic and social crisis, and after the violent repression of waves of protests in the winter of 2017-18 and in 2019.

Only two reformist candidates, neither with broad national appeal, are facing five ultra-conservative runners.

Hamid, a 52-year-old insurance agent, indicated he had already made his choice: ultraconservative judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi.

Raisi "really worked well in the justice system and did a good job at fighting corruption", Hamid said.

Iran’s candidate-vetting Guardian Council this week approved seven candidates to run in the election from a field of about 600 hopefuls.

The council -- a conservative-dominated, unelected body -- disqualified moderate conservative Ali Larijani and first vice-president Eshaq Jahangiri, as well as firebrand former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The move appears to have cleared the way for a strong run by Raisi.

But it also unleashed a flood of criticism of the Guardian Council and is expected to lead to an increase in voter abstention.

"I prefer not to vote than to make the wrong choice, or to have to choose between bad and worst," said Arezou, a private sector worker.

Larijani, an adviser to supreme leader Ali Khamenei and former parliamentary speaker, was seen as the only person capable of challenging Raisi, according to local media.

Raisi won 38 percent of the vote in the 2017 presidential election but was defeated by incumbent President Hassan Rouhani, who is constitutionally barred from running for a third consecutive term.

Rouhani, a moderate who has governed with the support of reformists and also moderate conservatives like Larijani, has been an advocate of detente with the West and of ending Iran's international isolation.

Instead, Iran was plunged into a deep recession after former US president Donald Trump torpedoed Rouhani's signature achievement, the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers which offered sanctions relief in return for Tehran's pledge never to acquire an atomic weapon.

The deal galvanized ultra-conservative opposition.

But with negotiations underway in Vienna on reviving the accord, it is not expected to be the focus of the election campaign.

Khamenei, who has endorsed a continuation of the nuclear talks to secure the lifting of sanctions, has taken the issue out of the equation for the candidates, urging them instead to campaign on economic issues such as youth unemployment.



Chinese President: Protectionism ‘Leads Nowhere’

Chinese President Xi Jinping (AFP) 
Chinese President Xi Jinping (AFP) 
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Chinese President: Protectionism ‘Leads Nowhere’

Chinese President Xi Jinping (AFP) 
Chinese President Xi Jinping (AFP) 

Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Monday that protectionism “leads nowhere” and that a trade war would have “no winners,” state media said, as he was due to kick off a tour of Southeast Asia with a visit to Vietnam.

Xi’s trip to southeast Asia is likely to cast China as a trustful partner, contrasting itself with Washington, which launched a global trade war.

The Chinese President’s first overseas trip of the year will see him visit Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia where he will meet his three Southeast Asian counterparts, the country’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Writing in an article published Monday in Vietnam's major Nhan Dan newspaper, Xi urged the two countries to “resolutely safeguard the multilateral trading system, stable global industrial and supply chains, and open and cooperative international environment,” Beijing's Xinhua News Agency said.

He also reiterated Beijing's line that a “trade war and tariff war will produce no winner, and protectionism will lead nowhere,” the agency added.

Xi’s visit comes at a time when the Asian giant is trying to present itself as a stable alternative to the US, which announced sweeping tariffs this month that sent global markets into a tailspin.

Xi will be in Vietnam on Monday and Tuesday, his first trip there since December 2023.

The two countries have close economic ties, but Hanoi is concerned about Beijing’s increasing assertiveness in the contested South China Sea.

China claims almost all of the South China Sea as its own, but this is disputed by the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Brunei.

The Chinese leader in his Monday article insisted Beijing and Hanoi could resolve those disputes through dialogue.

“We should properly manage differences and safeguard peace and stability in our region,” Xi wrote, according to Xinhua.

“With vision, we are fully capable of properly settling maritime issues through consultation and negotiation,” he said.