Iran state TV: 7 approved for June 18 presidential election

Iranian state television has named the seven candidates approved for the country’s June 18 presidential election

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran named seven candidates Tuesday for its June 18 presidential election, approving the candidacy of the hard-line cleric running the country's judiciary while barring a former parliament speaker allied to the country's current president. The decision by Iran's Guardian Council puts judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi, who ran against President Hassan Rouhani in 2017, in the driver's seat for the upcoming vote. An announcement on state television didn't discuss the fact that former parliament speaker Ali Larijani, a conservative who allied with Rouhani in recent years, had been barred. Larijani had been positioning himself as a pragmatic candidate who would back Rouhani's signature 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Also barred was former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Rouhani's senior Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, a reformist.