Iran International
Registration for Iran's June 28 snap elections ended on Monday with 80 candidates. Many are questioning the high number and speculating on who will ultimately be approved by the Guardian Council to participate in the race.
Over half of the registrations took place on the last day and even final hours. Authorities say 80 candidates registered in the past five days.
An interior ministry official said Monday after the closure of registration that the Guardian Council will announce the names of qualified candidates on June 11. The number of qualified candidates can range from around four to over ten, based on past instances.
Approved candidates will have two weeks to campaign before the election day. There will be a run-off election on July 5 if none of the candidates gains than 50% of the ballots cast.
The top candidates who registered Monday included Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the conservative speaker of parliament, Es’haq Jahangiri, former Vice President in Hassan Rouhani's administration, as well as two of the incumbent ministers, namely minister of roads and urban development, Mehrdad Bazrpash, and minister of cooperatives, Sowlat Mortazavi.
The majority of registered candidates are current and former lawmakers, most of whom have little chance of being among the final candidates approved to run.
There are numerous in election-time political parties and groups in Iran, but candidates usually register independently from their parties and later acquire the support of one or more ‘fronts’ that form at election time. Hence, there may be several candidates from the same political party in the same election with or without endorsement of their parties or the political ‘front’ to which they belong.
Jahangiri, for instance, is one of the founders of the reformist Executives of Construction Party (Kargozaran) and Abdolnasser Hemmati, a former governor of the Central Bank of Iran, also hails from the same party.
One of the major questions now is which of the current and former officials will be approved and whether any of the moderates and reformists will be allowed to stand in.
From the conservative camp, hardline politician Saeid Jalili and conservative Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, along with the more "moderate" conservative Ali Larijani, are the most notable candidates, assuming they are approved by the Guardian Council.
On the reformist and moderate side, Jahangiri and Hemmati are among the main contenders.
Hemmati ran for president before but failed to garner a significant support base.
Jahangiri was disqualified in the previous presidential election. If he is allowed to run this time, he can tap into the reformist camp's support and challenge his conservative counterparts.
On Monday, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei dedicated most of his speech at the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, to the Gaza-Israel conflict. He spoke only briefly about the upcoming elections, following a eulogy for President Ebrahim Raisi, whose death in a helicopter crash on May 19 prompted the snap elections.
As usual, Khamenei, who is believed to have the final say on the selection of candidates, called for a high voter turnout and the creation of an "epic." He also urged candidates to avoid slander and refrain from smearing each other.
Many believe this is unlikely, even if all approved candidates are from the Principlist, or conservative, spectrum. Supporters of former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, who also represents Khamenei in the Supreme National Security Council, and those of Ghalibaf have been leading an intense campaign against each other. This rivalry is expected to intensify in the coming days.
Ghalibaf, who was elected as Speaker of Parliament just last week, is a veteran candidate who is unlikely to be barred from running. However, he and his family face numerous corruption accusations, making him an easy target for revelations by rival camps, particularly supporters of Saeed Jalili. Jalili, like Ghalibaf, is also unlikely to be disqualified.
Jahangiri, on the other hand, has registered to run twice before. He was largely seen as Hassan Rouhani’s 'supporting' candidate in the 2017 elections, for which he was qualified to run. However, in 2021, he was barred from running and could potentially be disqualified again this time.
Populist former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is widely believed to have no place in the upcoming elections. He has turned into a critic of the ruling elite, who barely tolerate him.
Some ‘reformist’ politicians have strongly criticized the registration and approval process as well as the absence of more political heavy-weights among the candidates.
In a tweet Sunday, reformist politician and former secretary general of Executives of Construction Party (Kargozaran), Gholamhossein Karbaschi, called the registration of candidates a “comic show or stand-up comedy”.
The former mayor of Tehran accused authorities of wasting the country’s time and money to prepare the public’s mind for the obliteration of the concept of elections as a pillar of democracy.
This apparently referred to the many speculations and discussions over who will eventually be allowed by the Guardian Council to run, making the presidency an ‘appointed’ rather than ‘elected’ office.
“Nice looking suit, a few slow steps, waving the birth certificate and a few camera flashes... That's it!” Saeed Hajjarian, an influential politician often referred to as the ‘theoretician of reforms’, broke his silence and tweeted Sunday.
Hajjarian criticized the registered candidates for neither proposing a “coherent plan”, nor naming their candidates for cabinet positions. “This is not politics and elections whatever its name may be!” he wrote.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Among the politically heavy weight candidates, disqualification of the populist former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who registered on Sunday is almost certain. Many believe he has “registered to be disqualified” to boost his anti-establishment image.
Hardliners and Ultra-Hardliners
Many among hardliners and ultra-hardliners who make up the majority of the registered candidates, including Zohreh Elahian, the only woman registered so far, are unlikely to be approved by the Council whose members are appointed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, however, has no concerns over his qualification to run. If elected, his government will most likely be a replica of Ebrahim Raisi’s over whose administration Jalili wielded much influence.
Many believe that Alireza Zakani, the mayor of Tehran, has registered to run only in a supporting role and may withdraw in Jalili’s favor, as Jalili did for Raisi in 2021, or help him against other candidates in election debates.
It remains to be seen whether Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf and Raisi’s minister of road and urban development, Mehrdad Bazrpash, will appear at the interior ministry on Monday, the last day of registrations.
Ali Larijani
Former moderate conservative speaker of the parliament, Ali Larijani, who was barred from running in 2021 may or may not be allowed to stand. Larijani, observers say, is counting on Khamenei’s intervention to be approved.
‘Reformists’
So far four ‘reformists’ have registered to run but none has yet been declared as the candidate of the Reforms Front. ‘Reformists’ had indicated that they were willing to participate in the elections provided that the ruling establishment allows them to field their own candidates.
The umbrella reformist decision-making body has so far insisted that it will not support any candidates from outside the reformist camp like 2013 and 2017 elections in which it supported moderate conservative Hassan Rouhani.
At least one of the four reformists who have registered, namely former lawmaker Mahmoud Sadeghi who registered on Sunday, is unlikely to be approved.
Like Larijani, former lawmaker Masoud Pezeshkian whose popularity seems to be more than the other registered reformists is believed to be counting on Khamenei’s intervention.
Former lawmaker Mahmoud Sadeghi, a vocal critic of Khamenei, is very unlikely to be approved.
The umbrella reformist decision-making body is to hold another meeting Sunday evening to decide its position.
Former Governor of the Central Bank and a member of the Kargozaran, Naser Hemmati, is very likely to be approved but has little chance of winning, observers say. Hemmati was approved to run against Raisi in 2012 but his bid to presidency was not supported by other reformist parties and groups.
Hemmati came third with around 2.5 million votes (8.4 percent) after Mohsen Rezaei. In the same elections, a staggering 13 percent of voters had cast void or blank ballots.
