Iran OKs 6 candidates for presidential race, but again blocks Ahmadinejad

Iran's Guardian Council on Sunday approved the country's hard-line parliament speaker and five others to run in the country's June 28 presidential election following a helicopter crash that killed President Ebrahim Raisi and seven others.

The council again barred former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a firebrand populist known for the crackdown that followed his disputed 2009 re-election, from running.

The council's decision represents the starting gun for a shortened, two-week campaign to replace Raisi, a hard-line protege of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei once floated as a possible successor for the 85-year-old cleric.

The selection of candidates approved by the Guardian Council, a panel of clerics and jurists ultimately overseen by Khamenei, suggests Iran's Shiite theocracy hopes to ease the election through after recent votes saw record-low turnout and as tensions remain high over the country's rapidly advancing nuclear program, as well as the Israel-Hamas war.

The Guardian Council also continued its streak of not accepting a woman or anyone calling for radical change to the country's governance.

The campaign will likely include live, televised debates on Iran's state-run broadcaster. Candidates also advertise on billboards and offer stump speeches to back their bids.

So far, none of them has offered any specifics, though all have promised a better economic situation for the country as it suffers from sanctions by the U.S. and other Western nations over its nuclear program, which now enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels.

Such matters of state remain the final decision of Khamenei, but presidents in the past have leaned either toward engagement or confrontation with the West over it.

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