Iran is scheduled to elect its president on the 18th. The conservative candidate and director of justice, Ibrahim Leahy, has the highest popular support rate and is considered to be expected to succeed Hassan Rouhani, the reformist president who will end his term in August.

　　Leahy said that if elected, a strong government will be established to safeguard the comprehensive agreement on the Iranian nuclear issue.

　　[Polls show great advantages]

　　The 17th is the "quiet period" 24 hours before the election. Candidates are not allowed to conduct canvassing activities.

If no candidate gets more than half of the votes in the election on the 18th, the two with the highest vote rate will enter the "decisive round" on the 25th.

The results of a number of public opinion surveys show that Leahy, 60, has a larger lead and is expected to win directly.

　　Leahy is a hardline conservative among the conservatives. He was born in the holy Shiite city of Mashhad. He started studying at the religious institute in the holy Shiite city of Qom at the age of 15. He studied under some of the most prominent religious personnel in Iran.

After the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, Leahy became a prosecutor, and in 2014 he became the attorney general of Iran.

　　The Supreme Leader of Iran, the Great Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, appointed Lehi in 2016 to be in charge of Iran's largest philanthropic foundation, and in 2019 he appointed Lehi as the director of justice.

　　Leahy ran for president in 2017 with 38% of the votes, losing to Rouhani, who won 57% of the votes.

　　[Removal of sanctions is a consensus]

　　The Iranian presidential election comes at a delicate period in US-Iran relations.

The Democratic government led by U.S. President Joseph Biden took office at the beginning of the year, and is now in the Austrian capital of Vienna for talks with relevant parties around the return to the Iran nuclear agreement.

　　According to the Associated Press, the United States and other Western countries have deep doubts about Leahy, and the hard-line conservatives to which the latter belongs also have extremely distrust of the United States.

Agence France-Presse analyzed that if Leahy is elected, the new Iranian government may face the West with a tougher posture.

　　However, analysts believe that this is unlikely to lead to a "derailment" of the Vienna-Iran nuclear talks.

　　During his current presidential campaign, Leahy promised to work hard to safeguard the Iran nuclear agreement after winning, and at the same time emphasized that only a "strong" government can put the agreement on the right track.

　　During Donald Trump’s administration, the United States unilaterally withdrew from the Iran nuclear agreement and restored and added sanctions on Iran.

This time the Iranian presidential election, the unanimous campaign topic of all camps is to urge the United States to lift sanctions.

　　The only reformist candidate is Abdul Nasser Hemati, the former governor of the Central Bank of Iran.

Hemati announced on the 16th that the current Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammed Javad Zarif was selected as the candidate for the vice president.

The latter is regarded as the "designer" of the Iran nuclear agreement.

(End) (Xinhua News Agency Special Feature) (Hu Ruoyu)