Iran approves six candidates for June 28 presidential vote

Iran on Sunday announced the six candidates, mostly conservatives, approved for the June 28 election to replace President Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash.

The candidates announced by the interior ministry were selected from 80 registered hopefuls by the Guardian Council, which oversees elections in the Islamic republic.

Among those approved are the conservative speaker of parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and the ultraconservative former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.

Just one reformist candidate, Massoud Pezeshkian, who is a lawmaker representing Tabriz in Iran’s parliament, has been approved.

The conservative former interior minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi has also been authorised to run.

Others on the list include conservative Tehran mayor Alireza Zakaani and incumbent vice president Amirhossein Ghazizadeh-Hashemi, the ultraconservative head of the Martyrs’ Foundation.

Former hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was previously disqualified from entering the presidential races in 2017 and 2021, was again excluded from the list.

Others including moderate ex-parliament speaker Ali Larijani and Vahid Haghanian, a former commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, were also barred from standing.

In the 2021 elections, the Guardian Council disqualified multiple reformist and moderate figures ahead of the presidential elections which brought the ultraconservative Raisi to power.

Those elections had a record low turnout for a presidential poll, at just 48.8 percent.