Iranian Parliament speaker Mohammad Qalibaf registered his candidacy Monday for the country’s June 28 election following the death of former President Ebrahim Raisi and others in a helicopter crash in May.
A conservative, hard-line politician, Qalibaf, 62, told journalists after his registration that he would continue Raisi’s path. He said poverty and rising prices are acute problems for Iranians as the nation grapples with international sanctions.
“If I didn’t register, the work we have started for resolving economic issues of the people in the popular government [of Raisi] and the revolutionary parliament, and is now at the stage of fruition, will remain unfinished,” Qalibaf said.
Details about the nature of those plans remain unclear as Iran's rial currency continues to drop, nearing 600,000 to the dollar. The currency was trading at 32,000 rials to the dollar in 2015.
Qalibaf said that if he did not believe Iran's economic and social issues were fixable, he "would never have entered the field of competition.”
He was elected last week to be the speaker of the new Iranian Parliament. He also held the position in the previous legislature.
Qalibaf was the mayor of Tehran from 2005 to 2017. He ran unsuccessful bids for president in 2005 and 2013 and withdrew from the 2017 presidential campaign in favor of Raisi.
Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former parliament speaker Ali Larijani, former Iranian Central Bank chief Abdolnasser Hemmati, and former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili have also registered their bids for the June election.
The election was originally due to be held in 2025 but was moved up following Raisi’s death last month.
Qalibaf and all other candidates must wait until June 11 to see if their candidacies are approved by the Guardian Council, a conservative-dominated body that vets election candidates.
Candidate registration closes on Monday.
Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.