The body responsible for vetoing the candidates for the Iranian Presidency has presented on Tuesday the final list of candidates. Of the seven names, selected from among dozens using criteria that only those who chose them know, what has most attracted the attention of observers is the one that did not appear: the pragmatic Ali Larijani, whom they considered the main rival of the rigorist Ibrahim Raisi.. The decision practically leaves Raisi free to take over the command of the Executive.
Iran has made the decision between the enthusiasm of the hard line, which seems to have managed to agree on a candidate, and the apathy of a growing majority, judging by the fact that almost all the polls predict a turnout of less than half of the electorate.. It is not that Larijani was to the taste of the majority but, with all the reformist figures swept from the race, he appeared as an affordable option and capable of mobilizing part of the center-reformism that four years ago promoted Hassan Rohani.
Instead, the election of the Council of Guardians – a body that is considered equivalent to the Spanish Constitutional Court, made up of twelve members, in which the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has considerable influence – has generated an avalanche of humorous comments and memes in Iranian social networks. Most of these alluded to the fact that Raisi, the current head of the Judiciary by Khamenei's appointment, after losing to Rohani in the 2017 elections, will be the only candidate with a chance of winning..
Other shortlisted hopefuls include Saeed Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator, Mohsen Rezaei, a well-known former Revolutionary Guard commander, and Abdolnasser Hemmati, the current head of the Central Bank of Iran.. Hemmati is the person closest to the Rohani Administration that will try to win the elections. Mohsen Mehralizadeh, a former provincial governor, is the most reformist profile to appear on the electoral lists. However, it is not a known figure.
Instead, they did not pass through the Guardian Council filter, apart from Ali Larijani, Rohani's reformist vice president Eshaq Jahangiri, the notorious former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Saeed Mohammad, a civilian member of the Revolutionary Guard.. Despite the fact that the options of placing one of their own in the Iranian Presidency seem slim, it is believed that, with an eventual election of Ibrahim Raisi, this body could extend its influence in the state apparatus.
After knowing the final list of candidates – which the Fars agency, close to the Guardians, had already leaked on Monday night – the separated candidate Larijani issued a statement accepting the result. “I have done my job before God and my beloved nation, and I am satisfied,” he said. Instead, paradoxically, his brother Amoli Larijani, a member of the Guardian Council, has denounced on Twitter the decision, which he said was taken “with interference from the security apparatus.”
The perception among most observers is that the presidential election on June 18 lacks the balance of power that has characterized the electoral contests in the Islamic Republic. Meanwhile, the outgoing government’s deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, returned to Vienna on Tuesday to resume nuclear negotiations. Sources close to the dialogue believe that there are not too many loose ends left to be ironed out. But there is no guarantee of a ‘white smoke’
before the vote.