Iranian Interior Ministry Announces Names of Six Final Presidential Candidates

The Iranian Interior Ministry’s Elections Headquarters on Thursday night (April 20), released the final list of the candidates, who have qualified to run in the country’s May 19 presidential election, in its statement No. 8.
According to a Farsi report by IRNA, the final list of the candidates whose qualifications have been approved by the Guardian Council is as follows:

Mostafa Aqa-Mirsalim
Mostafa Hashemi-Taba
Es’haq Jahangiri
Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf
Hassan Rouhani
Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi

Also, among the candidate hopefuls were the former Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, his vice-president, Hamid Baqaei and Mohammad Hashemi Rafsanjani, the brother of late Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani who was a former president and the former head of Iran’s Expediency Council. However, they failed to qualify to run in May’s election.
The vetting body examined the qualifications of more than 1,600 candidates over the past few days.
“We held the final session on examining the qualifications of the presidential election nominees today and fortunately reached a conclusion after five days of numerous sessions,” the council’s spokesman, Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, said before releasing the final list.
The qualified candidates can start election campaigning as of now until 8 a.m. May 18, the Interior Ministry said in the statement.
Iran will simultaneously hold the 12th presidential election and the 5th City and Village Councils Elections on May 19.
Observers predict a high turnout in the election in which voters will pick the next president for a four-year term.
The five-day registration process for the presidential election ended on Saturday (April 15) and the Guardian Council started vetting presidential election hopefuls the following day.
Earlier this week, the commander of the Special Units of the Iranian Police Force said that 20,000 police officers would be deployed across the country to ensure security for the votes.