ERBIL, Kurdistan Region— Iranian President Hasan Rouhani will not head to the Kurdish province of Kermanshah for a previously scheduled campaign visit on Tuesday, Iranian media reported Monday.
The visit, which was part of his re-election campaign ahead of next month’s presidential vote, was planned to take place on Tuesday.
The President's campaign in the Kurdish city has told the local media that the visit will take place with some delay, adding that President Rouhani will visit Kermanshah on Sunday.
The trip was cancelled reportedly after a car factory which the president was scheduled to inaugurate was still under construction and not fully established.
Rouhani had been scheduled to tour the factory on Tuesday where he also planned to sign executive orders related to the manufacturing industry in the province.
Kermanshah, located southwest of the country, has a predominantly Kurdish population and is one of the most impoverished provinces in Iran with unemployment rates considerably higher than the rest of the country.
Widely considered as representing the so-called moderate camp in Iran, Rouhani appears to receive the largest share of Kurdish votes across the northwestern regions of Iran as he did during 2013 presidential election.
Kurdish journalist Farhad Aminpour based in Iran says the so-called hardliners in the country’s Kurdish regions are still divided over their final choice between Tehran’s former Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf and Shiite cleric Ibrahim Raisi.
“The election campaigns in Iranian Kurdistan have been affected by the Kurdish group’s call for boycott and the fact that the current president did not implement parts of his previous promises regarding the region,” Aminpour said.
Last week, Iran’s exiled Kurdish opposition groups jointly called on Kurdish voters to boycott upcoming general elections in the country which they described as “a masquerade” staged by “a regime that has deprived the human and just rights” of the people in Iran’s Kurdistan.
Rouhani has made numerous official trips to Kurdish cities and shown solidarity with their grievances. He has promised to improve Kurdish language education in Iranian Kurdistan and help to promote Kurdish culture. But critics have said Rouhani’s economic policies have not eliminated extreme poverty and high unemployment in Kurdish areas.
“Rouhani is likely the only candidate who takes the grievances of Kurdish and Sunni populations seriously but his failure to implement his own agenda about the rights of the religious and national groups, has had an impact on the public opinion in Iranian Kurdistan,” said Abdulla Sepehri, former Kurdish lawmaker from Mariwan.
