During the 2013 presidential elections in Iran, Hassan Rouhani used to enjoy support from reformists. He was the only candidate who was fully supported by almost all reformist parties in Iran. Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Reza Khatami, the two prominent political figures in the country, also declared their support for Rouhani at that time.
After winning the presidential elections with a landslide victory, President Hassan Rouhani didn’t pay attention to reformists. Rouhani didn’t keep his promise of releasing political prisoners including Zahra Rahnavard, Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi.
Hojatoleslam Rasoul Montajabnia, the deputy of the Etemad-e Melli Party, says President Rouhani is no longer supported by reformists. It is worth mentioning that Hassan Rouhani is still enjoying close relations with Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
“During the 2013 presidential elections, reformist parties didn’t intend to support Rouhani from the beginning. However, we decided to support Rouhani in order to secure the victory of reformists in the presidential elections,” Montajabnia told local media on Monday.
Montajabnia believes that President Rouhani is unable to implement the suggested plans by reformists. “Despite receiving valuable advice from reformist parties, Rouhani is unable to run the suggested plans in order to secure national interests,”
Rasoul Montajabnia went on to say that reformist parties in the country are not intended to cut their support for President Rouhani. “In fact, we don’t want to make any trouble for the Iranian government by stop supporting the president and his ministers. But we only want to make Iranians aware of the present conditions.”
It is worth mentioning that Mohammad Reza Aref played an important role in reformists’ victory in the Iranian presidential elections by withdrawing from the race in favor of Hassan Rouhani.