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Iranian President Decides to Run for Re-election: Report
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has decided to run for a second term in the June presidential election as registration of candidates begins on Wednesday, Iranian media reported.
"Khatami's participation in the election has become certain and he is determined to register for it," the Persian-language daily Hambastegi said, citing informed sources close to the president.
The reformist newspaper said that Khatami conferred with Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Monday on his intention to stand in the election.
Some members of the Iranian parliament also said on Tuesday that Khatami's candidacy is "an issue beyond doubt."
Hambastegi, which belongs to Iran's Islamic Iran Solidarity Front, said that Khatami was intending to have his name registered at the last moment.
The registration began at 08:00 local time (0330 GMT) and would-be candidates have five days, including Thursday and Friday, to file their papers to the Interior Ministry, it said.
Meanwhile, Tehran Radio reported on Wednesday that 12 presidential hopefuls, many of them maintaining low political profile, have expressed intention to stand in the presidential election shortly after the registration kicked off.
While Iran's official IRNA news agency reported that 17 hopefuls filed their papers to the Interior Ministry on Wednesday. The liberal-minded Farah Khosravi became the first woman to register for presidential election since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Khatami, who won a landslide victory in the 1997 election, has to register his candidacy by May 6.
After registration, the Interior Ministry would present the related documents to the Guardians Council (GC) for screening the candidates. The council would announce the result of its vetting procedures in 10 days.
The election campaigns would continue until June 6 and the campaigns would be prohibited on June 7, one day before Iran's eighth presidential election.
Official reports have estimated that some 42 million Iranians are eligible voters out of a population of 62 million.
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