Iran to Hold Presidential Vote in August; Test for Pragmatists Seen
Iran will hold presidential elections in August, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported Saturday. The vote could be a key test between so-called pragmatists and their hard-line opponents in the Islamic republic.
It will be the fifth presidential election since the republic was proclaimed in 1979.
Hard-liners, who now appear to be backed by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s supreme leader, are battling the more moderate pragmatists, who seek liberalization in Iran and closer links with the West.
President Ali Khamenei, the Islamic republic’s third president who has been in office since 1981, cannot run for a third four-year term under the revolutionary constitution.
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