SEMNAN A center-of-right faction is to announce a candidate for the next presidential elections, scheduled for June 8 by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20), a former MP said here Wednesday.

Ahmad Rassoulinejad said that the partisans of (the late founder of the Islamic Republic) Imam Khomeini and the Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) are to announce a candidate.

He noted that the rightists made mistakes in their canvassing for the seventh presidential polls in 1997 which brought incumbent President Mohammad Khatami to power on a landslide vote.

Mohammad Khatami was elected president on May 23, 1997 by over 20 million votes (69 percent of the total cast) for a term of four years which will end in May.

In late July he made known his intention to run for a second term in office and said he would come up with an even "more developed program for reforms."

The wrath of Khatami's opponents were further drawn after a close ally of him, embattled Deputy Interior Minister Mostafa Tajzadeh was tapped to oversee the presidential elections in June.

Tajzadeh who was also in charge of the last parliamentary elections headquarters has been tried for what the conservatives term as electoral fraud.

Last month, the right wing Islamic Coalition Society, warned of the likelihood of a low turnout at presidential polls in the event the public should lose its faith in the upcoming elections as a result of certain contingent developments.

Despite accusations that he has failed to make good on many of his campaign promises, Khatami remains a powerful prospective candidate partly because of a widely-recognized absence of an alternate choice who can effectively take the post.

(IRNA)