Six candidates, including the speaker of parliament, have been approved to run in the Iranian election this month to succeed President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash last month. The vote comes at a moment when the country faces acute domestic and international challenges, state media said Sunday.
The speaker of parliament, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, and five other men were approved by the Guardian Council, a 12-person body that vets candidates, for the balloting on June 28, according to the state news agency IRNA, which cited Mohsen Eslami, spokesperson for the country’s election headquarters.
Qalibaf, a retired pilot and former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, has run twice unsuccessfully for the country’s presidency and is a former mayor of the capital, Tehran. He became speaker of parliament in 2020 after a legislative election.