Brief Analysis
The regime is seemingly removing any obstacle that might prevent Ebrahim Raisi from winning the presidency and, perhaps, succeeding Khamenei down the road, but the risk of further eroding its internal legitimacy is high.
Iran’s presidential campaign offered up a “May surprise” this week, with the Guardian Council announcing that several prominent candidates had been disqualified from running in the June 18 vote. Although mass disqualifications are nothing new for the regime, some of the names on this year’s chopping block were unexpected: only seven of the forty candidates who met the minimum registration criteria earlier this month were ultimately approved to run, and the finalists do not include high-profile figures such as former Majlis speaker Ali Larijani, Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, or former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.