Get your free copy of Editor's Digest
FT editor Roula Khalaf picks her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Iranian authorities have disqualified prominent moderate candidates from running in presidential elections due later this month, narrowing the field to five hard-liners and one moderate reformer.
Iran's constitutional watchdog, the Guardian Council, responsible for vetting election candidates, released the approved list of candidates on Sunday. Iran is set to hold early elections following a helicopter crash that claimed the life of the country's President Ebrahim Raisi.
Analysts see current National Assembly Speaker Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf as a leading hard-line candidate.
The council disqualified former president Ali Larijani, a key figure in the 2015 nuclear deal, and former reformist First Vice President Eshak Jahangiri. Both disqualified candidates campaigned on pledges to turn the country away from its current hard-line course and seek relief from U.S. sanctions. The council did not give a reason for the disqualification.
One of the approved candidates is former nuclear negotiator Said Djalili, known for his opposition to talks with the West and seen as one of the country's most hardline hardliners and a strong rival to Ghalibaf.
Authorities also endorsed reformist MP Masoud Pezechkian in an attempt to bring competition from outside the hardline camp.
But the main challenge for reformists will be mobilizing voters amid growing skepticism about whether the elections will have a real impact on the country's future direction, given that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei remains in power. Analysts believe Pezeshkian's victory will require high turnout among the urban middle class and will depend on how hard-line votes are distributed among his camp's five candidates.
Reform analyst Saeed Lailaz said he hoped Pezeshkian's confirmation would mark a new chapter in Iranian history. “His candidacy goes far beyond expectations,” he told the Financial Times, predicting it would lead to a high voter turnout.
Reformist former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi said in a post on X that the main candidates were likely to be Ghalibaf and Pezeshkian. Other contenders include hardline former minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi, conservative politician Amir Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi and Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakhani.
The economy remains the president-elect's biggest challenge, with high inflation and a badly devalued currency weighing on the country. As the Islamic Republic seeks to stifle the election campaign, two previous critics of Ghalibaf and his associates on corruption charges were convicted and jailed on Sunday for “spreading false information and confusing public opinion.”
Meanwhile, Khamenei urged candidates not to criticise each other during the election campaign, which begins on Wednesday.
Laylaz said reformists would give Pezeshkian their full support two weeks before the election. “The good thing about Pezeshkian is that he is not against any of the major powers in the system and he has a huge support base among the large Azerbaijani-speaking community in northwestern Iran. It is easy to see him becoming Iran's next president,” he said.
