NEXT STEP:

"After the successful first step in 2013, this coalition should take the second step for the Majlis (parliament)," [Khatami] said in a four-minute video, dubbing a joint ticket of reformists and moderates as "a list of hope".

He was referring to incumbent Hassan Rouhani's 2013 presidential election victory which led to a nuclear deal that ended a 13-year standoff with world powers.

In this week's election, Rouhani is looking to overturn the majority in parliament of conservatives who resisted the nuclear deal and have also opposed his broader outreach to the West.

Despite the ban on use of his image or words in Iran's print and broadcast media, Khatami, who served as president from 1997 to 2005, remains an important figure in the pro-Rouhani coalition, the Alliance of Reformists and Government Supporters.

"I suggest that all blocs agree to present the list as the list of hope to the people," he said.

The message was simultaneously distributed on the smart phone messaging app, Telegram.

Khatami said voters should also support lists headed by Rouhani and former president Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in the second election taking place Friday, that of the country's Assembly of Experts. [...]

In a barely veiled dig at hardliners, Khatami's predecessor, Rafsanjani, said the elections were "a valuable opportunity to prevent institutionalization of political radicalism and religious extremism in society."

Voters' support for moderates would "prove to the world" that rather than the "extremism of a limited group" the true Islam "avoids war and bloodshed in favor of kindness, peace and brotherhood," said Rafsanjani, who was president from 1989 to 1997.

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