DUBAI – Former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani threw himself into Iran’s election race on Saturday as a flurry of heavyweight candidates rushed to beat the registration deadline in the most unpredictable contest for decades.
Iranian media reported that Rafsanjani – a relative moderate – had registered for the June 14 election with just minutes to spare. His candidacy radically alters what was previously seen as a contest between rival conservative groups.
The former president could scupper the hopes of ‘Principlists’, loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who are aiming to secure a quick and painless transition.
Rafsanjani, 78, who was president from 1989 to 1997, is expected to draw some support from reformists because he backed the opposition movement in 2009 election.
The election comes at a critical moment, as Iran reels from international sanctions and faces the threat of attack by Israel.
A vast field of more than 400 candidates have thrown their names into the ring as potential successors to outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Shortly before Rafsanjani’s announcement, Saeed Jalili, a hardline conservative who is seen as close to Khamenei and has led rounds of so far unsuccessful nuclear talks with world powers, entered his name as a candidate.
Soon afterwards, ISNA news agency reported the registration of Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, an aide to Ahmadinejad and a man viewed with intense distrust by conservatives.
Former parliament speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel registered to run becoming the first of a trio of Khamenei loyalists expected to do so.
Allied with Haddad-Adel are former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati and Tehran mayor Mohamed Baqer Qalibaf – Iranian media say two of them will step aside later in favour of whoever appears to have the best chance of winning the election.
Our final choice will be announced after the Guardian Councils decision, the Fars news agency quoted Haddad-Adel as saying after registering, referring to a body which vets applicants before they are allowed to run. Agencies
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