Hard-liners’ adviser fears defeat in Iran

TEHRAN, Iran – With a week to go before presidential elections, a strategist for Iran’s hard-line politicians is advising several conservatives to drop out and unite behind a single candidate or face losing to the reformers.

But there is little sign any will pull out. That leaves them trailing and former president Hashemi Rafsanjani – who advocates improving relations with Washington – as the apparent front-runner.

Rafsanjani is presenting himself as the only candidate the world can rely on in talks over Iran’s nuclear program, which the Bush administration alleges is a front for developing atomic weapons.

He is running under the slogan “Let’s work together.” It is interpreted as a conciliatory gesture, because he has moved between hard-line and moderate camps in a country where conservative clerics have maintained control despite strong electoral showings by reformers.

The election Friday will choose a successor to outgoing President Mohammad Khatami, who came to power in 1997 but whose attempts to bring reforms were thwarted by hard-line clerics loyal to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khatami is barred by law from seeking a third term.

If no candidate gains 50 percent, a run-off between the two top vote-getters will be held June 24.

Hossein Shariatmadari, a close aide to Khamenei, has said publicly that the hard-line candidates have no chance of winning unless some withdraw.

The hard-liners – former national police chief Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf; former radio and television chief Ali Larijani; Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; former head of the elite Revolutionary Guards Mohsen Rezaei – are all former military commanders.