Iranian Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf announces presidential bid

Shafaq News / On Monday, Iranian Parliament Speaker and conservative politician Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf submitted his candidacy for the upcoming early presidential elections scheduled for June 28.

Originally set for 2025, the elections were moved forward following the death of President Ebrahim Raisi on May 19. Raisi, along with seven of his aides, including Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, perished in a helicopter crash in a mountainous region of northern Iran.

Ghalibaf, like all other candidates, will need to wait until June 11 to find out if his candidacy will be approved by the Guardian Council, a 12-member body dominated by conservatives.

This marks Ghalibaf's fourth presidential bid, following previous attempts in 2005, 2013, and 2017. In his last attempt, he withdrew in favor of Raisi, who subsequently finished second to former President Hassan Rouhani.

Upon submitting his candidacy, Ghalibaf stated, "If I do not run in the election, the work we have begun in recent years to solve people's economic problems will remain incomplete." He added that he would not enter the race if he did not believe in the possibility of addressing Iran's economic and social issues.

At 62 years old, Ghalibaf is a former commander of the Air Force in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

He was elected as the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament on May 28 and had previously held the same position in the former parliament.

An Iran-Iraq war veteran, Ghalibaf also served as the Mayor of Tehran from 2005 to 2017 and was the head of the Iranian police force before that.

The registration of candidates began on Thursday and will continue until Monday. Other prominent figures who have submitted their candidacies include former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, moderate ex-parliament speaker Ali Larijani, and ultraconservative former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.