Iran's Rouhani reruns for presidency, defends his performance in office

Iran's incumbent President Hassan Rouhani registered for the upcoming Iranian presidential election on Friday and defended the performance of his administration over the past four years.
Following the registration, Rouhani hailed the Iranian international nuclear deal, known as JCPOA, as his administration's achievements, saying that "from now on, protecting the nuclear deal would be one of the important issues (for the next government) politically and economically."
Besides, the nuclear agreement with powers in July 2015 was instrumental to alleviate the risk of war against Iran, he said. Over the past four years, "security of the country was a major concerns of (his) government, and as you see, the vicious ghost of war against the country has been dispelled and we are witnessing security for the people today," he added.
Rouhani also referred to his government's "successful" management of economic issues and said that he was able to curb the inflation, raise the rate of economic growth, stop depression and, to some extent, solve unemployment problem.
He also expressed satisfaction with his foreign policy attainments and said as he had pledged during his presidential campaign in 2013, he has taken steps to improve relations with the world and to interact constructively with the western countries.
The Iranian president said that revival of social ethics and the rights of citizenship, transparency as well as free circulation of information would still be on the agenda of his program for the next term of presidency, if elected.
For the time being, constant and green-friendly development, creating jobs and fighting social problems, say, poverty and addiction are among major concerns of his administration and he is determined to pace in this direction, he said.
He urged the Iranians, particularly, the youngsters, to actively participate in the upcoming presidential elections.
On Tuesday, Iran's Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli announced registration of candidates for Iran's 12th presidential race.
The registration will last until Saturday and all the hopefuls will undergo the subsequent vetting process by the country's high legislative body, namely the Guardian Council of the Constitution.
The Guardian Council will assess the qualification of the applicants and announce the names of the qualified candidates by April 27.
According to the schedule released by Iran's Interior Ministry, the campaign for presidential race will kick off on April 28 and will continue until the end of May 17.
The hopefuls will have 20 days for electoral campaigns, ahead of the election day slated for May 19.
The candidate should basically be an Iranian national, prudent and capable of taking on leadership duties, and being religious and believing in the Islamic republic's principles and its official religion.

Source: Xinhua