Speaking to Khabar Online, a senior Iranian lawmaker Omidvar Rezaei commented on the upcoming Iran's presidential election scheduled to be held in June.

A neurosurgeon, Rezaei has been elected as a member of Iranian Majlis Parliament three times and was recently appointed as the deputy of Majlis’ laws. He is the brother of Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of the Islamic Republic of Iran's Expediency Council who was the chief commander of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in 1981 to 1997. Mohsen Rezaei was also a candidate who ran for the disputed Iranian presidential vote in 2009 which led to the reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Describing the qualifications of the next president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Omidvar Rezaei underlined that first of all the president must be accountable, admit his possible mistakes and avoid playing in the others’ court. The president of Iran must implement law whether it appeals to him or not. Even If he supposes that something is wrong with a law, he must follow a legal procedure to prove his word and amend the law through interaction with other branches and organizations.
The lawmaker stated: “The president should be tolerant and employ all talents among people and various political factions. Even if someone is a senior expert outside the president's political band, the head of government must tap his/her expertise.”
In Rezaei’s view, the other point is that the president must be tolerant enough to accept the criticisms made of him: “He should be able to create interaction between branches and organizations of the country. He cannot individually accomplish all these tasks and all related officials and organizations must interact with each other to achieve such goal.”
“Both positive and negative points have been visible in the administrations of the Islamic Republic of Iran, however in the government of Mr. Ahmadinejad the negative points are more visible than the positive ones which makes the pathology of his administration more necessary. For the next government, we should take this point into consideration” he said.
The deputy of Majlis’ laws indicated that the main problem with Ahmadinejad's government was the lack of cooperation between branches and organizations: “Such problem led to detrimental consequences for instance ignoring the law which in itself is the origin of several other problems and disputes between the branches of country.”
Answering a question about the chance of a figure like Ahmadinejad in the next Iranian presidential election, Rezaei said: “The current situation is not comparable with the past. Nowadays due to paying cash subsidy, the president may possibly gain the votes of the poor layers of the Iranian society, but he won't be able to win the votes of the majority.”
 “As a matter of fact, the government is coping with serious problems resulted from its economic and political performance, as the measures taken by the government do not live up to people’s demand, the economic problems in particular are looming large.”
"Although the subsidy reform plan in the way implemented by the government of Mr. Ahmadinejad damaged the national interests, hiked up the inflation and caused several economic disputes and negative consequences, it sometimes have been favorable for people who are away from the main current of economy in the country, for example for those who are living in some very small towns or villages,” he added.
“At the moment people are exhausted from hearing slogans chanted by the government and I think they want to approve a person after studying his characters and records to realize whether he would be able to put a positive impact on their life or not. Earlier some slogans of Mr. Ahmadinejad including “putting the petroleum income on people's tables”, which claimed Iran's oil profits would be distributed fairly among the deprived people, have lost their effect,” the senior lawmaker said.

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News ID 183686