Iran parliament speaker Ghalibaf launches presidential bid

The conservative speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, has registered his candidacy for the snap presidential election on June 28.

The election was originally to be held in 2025 but was brought forward following the unexpected death of ultraconservative president Ebrahim Raisi on May 19.

Raisi and seven members of his entourage, including foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, were killed when their helicopter came down on a fog-shrouded mountainside in northern Iran.

Like all the other hopefuls, Ghalibaf now has to wait until June 11 to see if his candidacy is approved by the Guardian Council, a conservative-dominated, 12-strong body of jurists, either appointed or approved by the supreme leader, which vets all candidates for public office.

This is Ghalibaf’s fourth run at the presidency, following bids in 2005, 2013 and 2017. On his last attempt, Ghalibaf withdrew in favor of Raisi, who finished second at the time to the moderate incumbent Hassan Rouhani.

“If I don’t run for election, the work that we have started in the last few years to solve the economic problem of the people… will not be completed,” he says after submitting his registration.

He adds that if he did not believe that Iran’s economic and social problems could be solved he “would never have entered the field of competition.”