Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf runs for presidential elections

Conservative Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf submitted his candidacy on Monday for the early presidential elections scheduled for June 28.

The elections were originally scheduled to be held in 2025 but were brought forward following the killing of hardline conservative President Ebrahim Raisi on May 19.

Like all other candidates, Ghalibaf will have to wait until June 11 to find out if the Guardian Council, composed of 12 members dominated by conservatives, will approve his candidacy.

This is the fourth time Ghalibaf has run for the presidency, following attempts in 2005, 2013, and 2017. In his last attempt, Ghalibaf withdrew in favor of Raisi, who came in second to former President Hassan Rouhani.

After submitting his registration, he said, "If I do not run for the elections, the work we started in recent years to solve people's economic problems will not be completed."

He added that if he did not believe in the possibility of solving Iran's economic and social problems, he would "never have entered the field of competition."

AFP