Pres. Calls For Greater 'Competition' In Election As Hardliners Fill Field

Incumbent President Hassan Rouhani has called on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to allow for greater 'competition' in the presidential election after the country's Guardian Council announced that only seven candidates had been approved to run in the 18 June presidential election, with all of them seen as religious hardliners.

• Rouhani, speaking at a televised Cabinet meeting, said, ""The heart of elections is competition. If you take that away it becomes a corpse...I sent a letter to the supreme leader yesterday on what I had in mind and on whether he can help with this".
• The seven individuals that have been approved to run are all viewed as conservative religious hardliners, with reformist candidates from Rouhani's wing of the Iranian political spectrum locked out.
• Judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi - who Rouhani defeated in a run-off election in 2017 - is viewed as the favoured candidate for religious hardliners, and as such is seen as the most likely to emerge as the winner of the election.
• Ex-parliament speaker Ali Larijani, a prominent reformist politician who has been vocally supportive of the Iran nuclear deal, was barred from standing in what has been viewed as a clear sign of Khamenei's favouring of Raisi to take over from Rouhani (there are also rumours Raisi is being groomed as a potential successor to Khamenei as supreme leader).
• The election of a hardline conservative reduces the prospect of an effective return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA, the Iran nuclear deal).
  • Either a deal is reached in the coming days/weeks in Vienna bringing the US back in and Iran returns to compliance. This is then reneged upon by a new conservative administration in Tehran, resulting in another US withdrawal.
  • Alternatively, a deal is not reached under the Rouhani administration and a new conservative administration withdraws from talks.