Latest on Iran’s presidential elections: More hopefuls withdraw from contest amid vetting

TABNAK: Several presidential hopefuls including Mohammad-Mehdi Zahedi, a parliament member, Mohammad Royanian, former Managing Director of Persepolis Football Club, Davood Manzour, Head of the Planning and Budget Organization and Habibollah Dehmardeh, a parliament member have dropped out of the contest so far.

The most leading candidates who have registered so far to run include Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, former First Vice President Es'haq Jahangiri, former Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani and ex-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Participants represent Principlist and Reformist camps as well as Centrists.

Other high-profile candidates include Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, former chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, former governor of the Central Bank of Iran Abdolnaser Hemmati, Mehrdad Bazrpash, the current Minister of Roads and Urban Development, and Solat Mortazavi, Minister of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare.

Despite initial speculation, Iran's Interim President Mohammad Mokhber did not enter the presidential race.

All candidates have unanimously vowed to improve the country’s economy as Tehran has been targeted by cruel US-led western sanctions over its nuclear program.

The five-day registration process kicked off on May 11 at the Interior Ministry in the Iranian capital Tehran as 80 candidates submitted in the race for Iran's 14th presidential election.

The process of vetting the candidates started last Tuesday and will continue until June 10, with the final nominees to be announced on June 11.

Those cleared by the vetting body will have two weeks to campaign, present their manifestos and participate in televised debates before the election.

The snap election is slated for June 28 and will elect a new president to replace Ebrahim Raeisi, who died in a tragic helicopter crash in northwestern Iran on May 19 along with Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and six of their companions.

The President is elected by an absolute majority of votes polled by the voters. But if none of the candidates can win such a majority in the first round, voting will take place a second time on Friday of the following week.

In the second round, only the two candidates who received the greatest number of votes in the first round will participate.

At a ceremony in southern Tehran last Monday commemorating the 35th anniversary of the passing of Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini, the late founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said the Iranian nation would need an "active, hardworking and cognizant president, who is committed to the basics of the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution."

Chapter IX of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran sets forth the qualifications for presidential candidates. Powers of the presidency include signing treaties and other agreements with foreign countries and international organizations, with the Leader of the Islamic Republic's approval; administering national planning, budget, and state employment affairs, as decreed by the Leader.

The Iranian president is also the head of the Supreme Council for National Security, the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, and the Supreme Council of Cyberspace.