Reformist daily describes Hemmati as a liability for Reformists

A leading Reformist daily says the Reformist faction will harm its image if it throws its support behind presidential candidate Nasser Hemmati since he is seen as a key economic decision-maker in the President Hassan Rouhani administration, which, it said, the public blames for the country’s current economic hardships.

In an article published on Wednesday, Shargh daily pointed to calls by some Reformist parties for the official anointment of Hemmati — who until recently was the governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) — as the Reformist faction’s representative in the June 18 presidential vote, reasoning out why the bloc should not respond positively to such appeals.

The 2021 presidential election is “full of obstacles for the Reformists,” it said. “The main obstacle is the heavy shadow of the Hassan Rouhani administration falling on the standpoints of the Reformists.”

Having endorsed and supported Rouhani in the 2013 and 2017 presidential elections, said the daily, the Reformist bloc is today seen as a partner in the administration’s poor economic performance in the eyes of the public, even though Rouhani, according to the daily, broke with the Reformist camp following re-election in 2017.

“With that explained, it seems that one of the obstacles in the way of the Reformists is a lack of public trust in any presidential candidate affiliated in any way with the [current] administration,” it read.

The piece took issue with the calls by some Reformist groups — especially the Executives of Construction of Iran Party, of which Hemmati is a member — for official recognition of Hemmati as the Reformist candidate in the upcoming presidential election.

“This is while he (Hemmati) is already facing the aforementioned caveat and is viewed by the public as one of the economic decision-makers of the Rouhani administration,” read the piece, arguing that if the Reformists supported Hemmati, “they would in fact be implying to the public that the Rouhani administration’s economic decisions have our approval.”

It said such an endorsement would thus be “very risky” for the Reformists since the economy is the hottest topic of the day. “This (support) will deal many blows to the Reformist current not only in this election but also in future ones.”

“Although Hemmati specializes in economics, some critics see him as a contributing force to the current inflation, in addition to the chaos in the stock market,” the paper said.

The piece said then that Hemmati is not very close to the Reformist camp, and that the ex-CBI chief is mainly viewed as a Moderate, technocrat figure who has long been away from party activities.

Hemmati, Mehr-Alizadeh competing to secure Reformist support?

Media affiliated with Iran’s Principlist camp say an unspoken competition has been underway between Nasser Hemmati and Mohsen Mehr-Alizadeh, two presidential candidates associated with the Reformists, to rally the support of Reformist leaders.

The paper predicted that if the Reformist camp supported either Hemmati or Mohsen Mehr-Alizadeh — another presidential candidate associated with the faction — “a defeat would be highly possible.”

“Under such circumstances, it could be more rational for the Reformist [camp] not to spend its credibility on the current contenders,” it added.

Other, more prominent Reformist figures had also signed up to run in the forthcoming election, but they were disqualified by the Constitutional Council, the vetting body that supervises elections. The most notable among them was Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri, whom the Reformists had groomed as their top choice for the presidency but who also was directly associated with the Rouhani administration.

Shargh said even Jahangiri, a veteran Reformist figure, could have faced the same downside given his role in the Rouhani administration if he had gained the approval to run.

Iran’s Reform Front — the main Reformist bloc in the country — said in a statement on May 26 that it had no candidate in the 2021 presidential election, signaling that Mehr-Alizadeh and Hemmati did not represent the Reformists. But there have been reports more recently that the Front is open to studying Mehr-Alizadeh and Hemmati’s presidential agendas, in what may lead to its endorsement of at least one of the two candidates.

“It remains to be seen which path the Reformist faction will take… It will be known in the coming days. Whatever will transpire will affect the fate of the Reformist faction for years to come,” Shargh said.

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