Iran OKs 6 candidates for presidential race, but again blocks Ahmadinejad

Dubai, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s Guardian Council on Sunday approved the speaker of the country’s hardline parliament and five others to run in the June 28 presidential election, following a helicopter crash that killed President Ebrahim Raisi and seven more.

The council again banned the former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejada populist firebrand known for the repression that followed his disputed 2009 re-election, to run.

The council’s decision marks the starting signal for a shortened two-week campaign to replace Raisi, a hardline protégé of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was once held up as a possible successor to the 85-year-old cleric.

The selection of candidates approved by the Guardian Council, a panel of clerics and jurists ultimately overseen by Khamenei, suggests that Iran’s Shiite theocracy hopes to facilitate the elections after recent votes saw record turnout and as tensions remain being high due to the rapid advance of nuclear energy in the country. program, as well as the war between Israel and Hamas.

The Guardian Council also continued its streak of not accepting a woman or anyone who called for a radical change in the country’s governance.

The campaign will likely include live televised debates on Iran’s state broadcaster. Candidates also advertise on billboards and give speeches to support their bids.

So far, none of them have offered specific details, although all have promised a better economic situation for the country, which is suffering from sanctions from the United States and other Western nations for its nuclear program, which now enriches uranium to a level closer than ever. to the level of weapons. levels.

Such matters of state remain Khamenei’s final decision, but presidents in the past have leaned toward compromise or confrontation with the West on the matter.

The most prominent candidate remains Mohamed Bagher Qalibaf, 62, a former mayor of Tehran with close ties to the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. However, many remember that Qalibaf, as a former Guard general, was part of a violent crackdown on Iranian university students in 1999. He also reportedly ordered the use of live firearms against students in 2003, while He served as the country’s police chief.

Qalibaf ran unsuccessfully for president in 2005 and 2013. He withdrew from the 2017 presidential campaign to support Raisi in his first unsuccessful presidential bid. Raisi won the 2021 election, which had the lowest turnout ever seen in a presidential vote in Iran, after all major opponents were disqualified.

Khamenei gave a speech last week alluding to qualities that Qalibaf supporters have highlighted as potential signs of the supreme leader’s support for the president.

However, Qalibaf’s role in the crackdown may be seen differently after years of unrest that has plagued Iran, both over its weakened economy and mass protests sparked by the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who died after being arrested for allegedly not wearing a veil. , or hijab, liked by security forces.

Other candidates include Saeed Jalili, formerly Jalili, a former senior nuclear negotiator, who ran in 2013 and registered in 2021 before withdrawing to back Raisi. Tehran Mayor Ali Reza Zakani also retired in 2021 to support Raisi. Mostafa Pourmohammadi is a former Minister of Justice. Amirhossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi, Raisi’s vice president, ran in the 2021 presidential election and came last with just under 1 million votes.

Masoud Pezeshkian is the only reformist candidate among a slate of hardliners and is not seen as having much chance.

The Guardian Council disqualified Ahmadinejad, the Holocaust-questioning firebrand and former president. Ahmadinejad increasingly challenged Khamenei towards the end of his term and is remembered for the bloody crackdown on the Green Movement protests of 2009. He was also disqualified in the last election by the panel.

He also blocked former parliament speaker Ali Larijani, a conservative with strong ties to Iran’s relatively moderate former president, Hassan Rouhani. It was the second consecutive election in which Larinjani was banned from standing.

Former Iranian Central Bank chief Abdolnasser Hemmati, who ran in 2021, and Eshaq Jahangiri, who served as vice president during moderate President Hassan Rouhani’s government, were also disqualified.

The election comes at a time of heightened tensions between Iran and the West over arms supplies to Russia in that country’s war against Ukraine. Its support for militias across the Middle East has increasingly been in the spotlight as Yemen’s Houthi rebels attack ships in the Red Sea over the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Raisi, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and others died in the May 19 helicopter crash in far northwest Iran. Investigations continue, although authorities say there are no immediate signs of foul play in the crash on a cloud-shrouded mountainside.

Raisi was the second Iranian president to die in office. In 1981, a bomb explosion killed President Mohammad Ali Rajai in the chaotic days after the country’s Islamic Revolution.