Iran election: Hardliners dominate presidential candidates

The present Speaker of Parliament, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, is another candidate with a good chance.

He is a regime insider and former general of the Revolutionary Guards who has also served as the country’s police chief and mayor of Tehran.

One of that pair might decide to leave the race at the last minute in order not to divide the votes.

Three other candidates – Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, Vice-President Amirhossein Qazizadeh Hashemi and Mostafa Pourmohammadi – are also hardliners of various shades.

Mr Pourmohammadi is a former justice and interior minister who, along with Ebrahim Raisi, was a member of the so-called “Death Committee” that approved the execution of thousands of political prisoners in the late 1980s.

An exception to the hardliners is Massoud Pezeshkian, the member of parliament for Tabriz. A relative moderate, he has an outside chance of winning if turnout is very low.

Mr Pezeshkian could win the votes of many otherwise reluctant voters who may see a vote of him is a vote against the hardliners. He is also ethnically Azeri, and is thought to have the votes of the some in the north-east of Iran, where the bulk of the population are Turkish-speaking Azeris.

Leaving him in the mix might be a ploy to push up a turnout that otherwise could be historically low.