Ex-president joins more than 680 candidates who include Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's close ally Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei
Leading contenders in Iran's forthcoming presidential election emerged on Saturday after registration for potential candidates ended with top figures from major rival camps entering what is likely to become a highly contentious race.
Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's close ally, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, have both registered as candidates for next month's presidential election.
Rafsanjani, who is expected to win the support of the country's reformers, and his hardline rival both announced their candidacy just before the deadline on Saturday.
Since Tuesday when the official registration had began, there were anticipation on whether the two men, who are feared to issue challenges to the establishment by their candidacy, would eventually sign up.
More than 680 candidates, including at least a two dozen women, have registered but Iran's Guardian Council, a powerful group of six clergymen and six jurists controlled by the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has the final say on who can stand. Only a handful of candidates are expected to be allowed to run in the 14 June vote.
Saeed Jalili, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator and a close ally of Khamenei, also registered at the interior ministry in Tehran's Fatemi street on Saturday, which was a crucial port of call for those wishing to succeed Ahmadinejad.
Rafsanjani, 79, is one of Iran's great political survivors who played an instrumental role in the appointment of Khamenei as the current supreme leader after the death in 1989 of the Islamic republic's founder, Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini.
However, Rafsanjani and Khamenei have been at odds since the former lost to Ahmadinejad in 2005 presidential election. In 2009, Khamenei sided with Ahmadinejad who was alleged to have won in a rigged election while Rafsanjani showed moderate support for the opposition Green Movement and its leaders who disputed the results.
As a result of his confrontation with Khamenei who has the final word in all state matters in Iran, Rafsanjani's authority has diminished in recent years and two of his children were jailed last year on separate charges but his candidacy can possibly play as a game changer.
Despite this, many believe that he has a strong base among clerics and can draw a great deal of support from reformists because of his sympathy with the opposition. Although Rafsanjani and Mashaei are rivals with complete different political allegiances, they are both loathed by the supporters of Khamenei for allegedly attempting to undermine his power.
Rafsanjani signalled last week that he would not run without Khamenei's consent. It was unclear on Saturday whether the supreme leader had in fact intervened in the final hours before registration drew to a close.
Mashaei was accompanied by Ahmadinejad as he put his name forward for the 14 June vote, local news agencies reported. The president soon came under attack for showing his support for Mashaei while holding an official position but dismissed the criticism, saying he was on a day off from work on Saturday.
"Mashaei means Ahmadinejad and Ahmadinejad means Mashaei," the president said in a joint press conference with his top aide soon after he registered. The pair displayed victory signs as they took their hands up.
Under the Iranian election law, Ahmadinejad is limited to two consecutive terms but has been widely accused of grooming Mashaei to succeed him as part of a plan for a Putin/Medvedev-style power grab.
Tehran's mayor, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and Ahmadinejad's elder brother, Davoud, were also among the politicians who registered on Saturday.
Ghalibaf, a conservative with strong ties to Khamenei, has formed a coalition with two other prominent figures with similar political leanings, Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Khamenei, and Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, a former parliamentary speaker. All three men have registered but according to the coalition plan, only one is eventually supposed to run.
Davoud Ahmadinejad, a former inspectorate-general at the presidential office, fell out with his brother over the president's choice in a cabinet appointment and his unwavering support for Mashaei. Since then, the elder brother has sided with the president's opponents and has embarrassed Ahmadinejad by speaking out against top presidential aides who are accused of being members of a so-called "deviant current" in Ahmadinejad's inner circle.
Ahmadinejad's support for Mashaei, who is accused of being the leader of the "deviant current", has cost the president a great deal of influence in Iranian politics. Ahmadinejad has been drawn into a bruising power struggle with the conservatives, many of them his former supporters, and has mounted serious challenges to Khamenei, such as engaging in public spats with top-level officials.
During the registration process politicians from various political groups have stepped forward, including Hassan Rouhani, a reformist, and Ali Akbar Javanfekr, a top presidential aide and Mohsen Rezaee, a former commander of the revolutionary guards.
But with former presidential candidates from the previous vote in 2009, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, still under house arrest four years after an election that resulted in months of unrest and bloodshed, the opposition Green Movement sees little legitimacy in this year's poll. The reformists have not called for an active boycott and Rafsanjani appears their favoured choice.
The opposition website Kaleme reported on Saturday that security officials have surrounded the areas close to the office of the former reformist president Mohammad Khatami, preventing his supporters from visiting him. In the wake of his house arrest, Khatami refrained from running but has endorsed Rafsanjani.
According to the 1979 Iranian constitution, the supreme leader is the head of the Iranian state and president heads the government. For 10 years after the revolution Iran had a prime minister as well as a president, but the position was abolished in 1989. Since then, all Iranian presidents have served two consecutive terms.