Iran Focus: Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf is one of the eight hopefuls competing to become president following the June 17 elections. He is also one of five candidates who previously held top Revolutionary Guards posts. Qalibaf, a former commander of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Air Force, stepped down as the chief of the paramilitary police force, the State Security Forces, to run in the upcoming elections. He headed the IRGC Air Force until June 2000, when he was selected as police chief.

Iran Focus: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the appointed Mayor of Tehran, after first getting the job in April 2003.
He is seen to be an ultra-conservative, having also been a top commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the regime’s ideological army.
Following the 1979 Islamic revolution he became a member of the Office for Strengthening Unity. He belonged to the ultra-conservative faction of the OSU.

Iran Focus: Hojatoleslam Mehdi Mahdavi-Karroubi, a mid-ranking cleric, is currently a member of the State Expediency Council and an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Karroubi was Majlis (parliament) Speaker from 1989 to 1992. He took up the same post again from 2000 to 2004 replacing a leading conservative, Ali Akbar Nateq Nuri, who was instead appointed an adviser to Khamenei.

Iran Focus:Mehralizadeh, perhaps the most obscure candidate in the race, is a Vice-President in the present administration of President Mohammad Khatami, serving as the head of the National Sports Organization. Of the eight candidates cleared by the Guardians Council to run in the upcoming June 17 Presidential elections, Mehralizadeh is one of five former top commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. He was was a regional commander of the ideological army from 1979 to 1981.

Iran Focus: Moin served as chancellor of Shiraz University from 1981 to 1982 and has been a member of the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council since 1983. Moin was a Majlis (parliament) deputy from 1982 to 1984, and again from 1988 to 1989. Moin served as the Culture and Higher Education Minister from 1989 to 1993 and served as Higher Education Minister from 1997 to 2003. Students and professors in Shiraz University in the early 1980s have signed a petition against Moin, saying that as chancellor, he actively purged dissidents and all those who did not conform to the dominant Islamic fundamentalist ideology.