Iran’s highest policy-making level, the Guardian Council, has approved the candidacy of six people, including the country’s speaker, in the election to succeed the late president of Iran, Ibrahim Raisi. The elections are expected to be dominated by hardliners. Because only one of the six contending candidates is a reformer.

The candidates are Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, former nuclear negotiator Said Jalili, former Interior Minister Mostafa Pour Mohammadi, Tehran Mayor Ali Reza Zakani, current Vice President Amir Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi and Member of Parliament Masoud Pezeshkian. They were named according to a statement broadcast on Iranian state TV.

The Guardian Council, which oversees the election, chose six candidates out of 80 to run for president. They will participate in the elections on June 28. The U.S. will closely monitor the outcome of the vote because of Israel’s aggression in Gaza and hostile relations with Iran over its nuclear program.

Meanwhile, Iran’s former radical president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad applied for candidacy but was not nominated by the country’s Guardian Council. Ahmadinejad announced his registration as a candidate on June 2. But analysts said at the time, the Guardian Council was unlikely to allow him to run.

Ahmadinejad questioned Khamenei’s monopoly on all important matters of Iran. Since then, there has been tension between him and Khamenei. News from Bloomberg