Iran vote: Top guns in fray

TEHRAN: Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili yesterday registered to contest the June 14 presidential election, joining several conservative hopefuls aiming to succeed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Jalili, 47, filed his papers at the Interior Ministry but did not speak to reporters, an AFP correspondent said.
A veteran of the 1980s war with Iraq in which he lost his right leg, Jalili had previously not expressed an intention to seek office.
He heads Iran’s team in negotiations with world powers over Tehran’s controversial atomic activities, which the West fears are aimed at developing a military capacity — a claim denied by the Islamic republic.
Ahmadinejad is constitutionally barred from seeking a third consecutive term.
His successor is expected to face an array of challenges, including Iran’s worsening economy targeted by international sanctions over its uranium enrichment activities.
Former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani also registered minutes before the expiry of the deadline for candidates to declare, Iranian media reported yesterday.
Iranian television showed Rafsanjani, 78, seated in the crowded presidential registration office, smiling and waving. He earlier served as president from 1989 to 1997.
Earlier yesterday, veteran diplomat Ali Akbar Velayati and Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf also registered to stand in the election, the first since 2009 that saw massive street protests erupting after Ahmadinejad’s re-election.
Before taking over as the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Jalili was a deputy foreign minister, as well as holding a position in the office of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. All decisions on key state affairs rest with Khamenei, including on the nuclear issue.
Iran was expected to wrap up the five-day registration of candidates yesterday, leaving the fate of the hopefuls in the hands of the Guardians Council, an unelected body controlled by religious conservatives appointed by Khamenei.