Iran named six presidential candidates, including the speaker of the parliament - Rezazade

Ali Reza Rezazade, the leader of the Iranian opposition in Washington, said that Iran has already nominated six presidential candidates to replace President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash last month.

Six candidates, including the parliament speaker, have been approved to run in Iran's elections this month. The vote comes at a time when the country is facing acute domestic and international challenges, state media reported on Sunday.

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Ghalibaf and five other men were approved by the Board of Trustees, a 12-member body that vets candidates. Ghalibaf, a retired pilot and former commander of the Revolutionary Guards, ran twice unsuccessfully for president and is a former mayor of the capital, Tehran. He became the speaker of the parliament in 2020 after the parliamentary elections.

Other candidates include former interior minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi, Saeed Jalili, former chief nuclear negotiator and current Tehran mayor Alireza Zakani.

The next president of the country will face problems in domestic and foreign policy. Deep economic problems, exacerbated by international sanctions, are fueling discontent among some Iranians who are demanding social and political freedoms as well as prosperity.

The largest recent female-led uprising erupted in 2022 after a young woman, Mahsa Amini, died in police custody, accused of improperly covering her hair under the country's hijab laws. On the international front, the new president will also face an "axis of resistance" that Tehran has adopted as its policy against the United States and Israel, including by funding Hamas and Hezbollah, armed groups based in Gaza and Lebanon, and by arming the Houthis in Yemenis who attacked cargo ships in the Red Sea.

The long shadow war between Iran and Israel erupted in April when Tehran launched a barrage of missiles and explosive drones at Israel in response to a deadly strike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus. In addition, Iran provided Moscow with explosive drones that it used in Ukraine, which in turn made Tehran a central player in the indirect confrontation between the Kremlin and NATO countries, including the United States.

ran's next president will face critical decisions about the country's status as a "threshold" nuclear power capable of producing fuel for three or four bombs at short notice. Last week, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog condemned Iran over its refusal to grant inspectors access to its uranium enrichment program.

Iran has said for years that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes and that it is not pursuing a bomb. But in recent months, several senior Iranian officials have said they may reconsider their nuclear doctrine if faced with an existential threat from other nuclear powers, namely Israel and the United States.