Women have not been allowed to run for president since 1979 (representative)
Tehran:
Eighty Iranians have registered to run in Iran's June 28 presidential election, brought forward by the death of Ebrahim Raisi, but many could still be disqualified before the campaign begins.
Who applied?
At the end of a five-day registration period on Monday, Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said 80 presidential candidates had declared their candidacy.
They include some figures who are more conservative than moderates and reformers, as well as ultra-conservatives, several mid-ranking clergymen and four women.
The best-known candidate is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 67, who is seeking a return to the presidency he held for two consecutive terms from 2005 to 2013.
The populist politician has been associated with inflammatory rhetoric about Israel and simmering tensions with the West, particularly over Iran's nuclear program.
Other senior officials in the Islamic Republic are also being considered as candidates, including current parliament speaker Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf, a conservative, former parliament speaker Ali Larijani, a moderate, and ultra-conservative former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.
In filing his candidacy on Monday, Ghalibaf said that if elected he hoped to resolve the country's problems, including “declining purchasing power, poverty, discrimination, inequality and sanctions.”
Iran is under heavy Western sanctions, mainly over its nuclear program, but also over its record of human rights abuses and military cooperation with Russia.
The list of candidates, which is not yet final, also includes Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakhani, former central bank governor Abdolnaser Hemmati and reformist former first vice president Eshaq Jahangiri.
Will all 80 people be able to compete?
Candidates must first get the go-ahead from the Guardian Council, a conservative-led, unelected body that vets all candidates for public office.
A 12-member body of jurists appointed or approved by the supreme leader will decide by June 11 which candidates will be allowed to run in the presidential election.
In the 2021 elections, the council approved only seven of 592 applicants, rejecting the candidacies of numerous reformist and moderate presidential candidates.
This allowed Raisi, then the conservative and ultra-conservative candidate, to easily win in the first round of voting.
Limited options led many voters to avoid the 2021 election, which saw turnout of just under 49%, the lowest in a presidential election since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Of this year's candidates, Ahmadinejad has already been disqualified twice, in 2017 and 2021, as have Larijani and Jahangiri.
According to Iranian law, to become president, a candidate must be between 40 and 75 years old, hold at least a university master's degree, and swear allegiance to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Can women win elections?
Women have not been allowed to run for president since 1979, but in 2021 the Guardian Council ruled that women are not legally barred from running for president.
One woman ran for election in 1997, but her candidacy was rejected.
Four women, all former lawmakers, ran for office this year.
One of them is Zohreh Elahian, a conservative who has defended the compulsory veil for women and supported the authorities' response to a series of months of protests following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini in late 2022.
The European Union subsequently imposed sanctions on Elahian for “human rights violations in Iran.”
How much power does the president have?
Unlike in many countries, the Iranian president is not the head of state; ultimate power in the Islamic Republic lies with the supreme leader, a position Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has held for 35 years.
However, the president still plays a key role in directing the government and its policies.
Khamenei on Monday called the upcoming vote a “major event” and urged Iranians to take part “in large numbers.”
The Islamic Republic abolished the prime ministerial position in a constitutional referendum in 1989, ten years after the revolution.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
