Iran's Guardian Council has given the nod to six candidates including a hardline parliament speaker to run in the June 28 presidential election following the demise of President Ebrahim Raisi and seven others in a helicopter crash.
Those approved by the council include Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, 62, a former Tehran mayor and Revolutionary Guard general.
Qalibaf is known for his role in the 1999 crackdown on university students and for ordering gunfire against students in 2003.
He previously ran for president in 2005 and 2013 and withdrew in 2017 to support Raisi. Raisi won the 2021 election, which saw the lowest turnout ever after major opponents were disqualified.
The council's decision starts a two-week campaign to replace Raisi, a hard-line protégé of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The Guardian Council, overseen by Khamenei, still does not accept women or radical reformists.
Other candidates include Saeed Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator; Tehran mayor Alireza Zakani; former justice minister Mostafa Pour Mohammadi; and Amir Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi, Raisi’s vice president. Masoud Pezeshkian is the only reformist candidate but is not seen as having much of a chance.
The council barred former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, known for his 2009 crackdown, from running again.
Former parliament speaker Ali Larijani, a conservative with ties to former President Hassan Rouhani, was also disqualified, as were former Central Bank chief Abdolnasser Hemmati and former vice president Eshaq Jahangiri.
The election occurs amid heightened tensions between Iran and the West over its nuclear programme and support for militia proxies in the Middle East.
Raisi, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, and others were killed in a May 19 helicopter crash in northwest Iran.
Investigations are ongoing, with no immediate signs of foul play. Raisi is the second Iranian president to die in office, following President Mohammad Ali Rajai, who was killed in a 1981 bomb blast.
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