Wampum

The Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF) drafted former minister of science, research and technology Mostafa Moin to run in the Spring presidentials. Moin was the Minister of Culture and Higher Education under President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989-1993) and President Mohammad Khatami (1997-2000) and later the Minister of Science, Research, and Technology (the same post, with a changed name) under President Khatami (2000-2003). He resigned two times, first after the student protests of July, 1999, and then in July, 2003 after the Council of Guardiansrejected a bill that he put forward to restructure his ministry.

Two years ago Hashem Aghajari was sentanced to death by a lower court in Hamedan for writing that true imitation is not thoughtless. He challenged religious emulation, underscoring the need for explanations from the religious leaders on the decisions they make binding for their followers. I wrote about it when his second death-sentence was overturned and during the election of the 7th Majlis, when the reformers stood-down as a body with some very similar reasoning Return of the ... One True King (IV). During the first trial at Hamedan, then Minister Moin wrote to Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei "Aghajari is a war veteran and has proved his commitment to Islam both in theory and action bringing such a heavy charge against him is irrelevant."

Moin was elected as representative of Shiraz in mid-term elections of first Majlis in 1982.

Moin's announcement mentioned corruption of the Pahlavi regime in a generational context (he was born in 1951) so he is running as a Revolutionary, and he criticized the oil dependence of the economy and the current economic planning (see drat! I thought I wrote about that open letter) and the brain-drain.

Update. Found the open letter. See XI.

Thus far Moin is the only declared candidate. I'll keep updating this as I think of things.