DUBAI, United Arab Emirates >> Iran’s hard-line parliament speaker emerged on Monday as the most-prominent candidate from within the country’s Shiite theocracy in the race for the June 28 presidential election to replace the late Ebrahim Raisi, killed in a helicopter crash last month.

The entry of Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, a former Tehran mayor with close ties to the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, catapulted him to the front of the bevy of candidates, just a day after hard-line former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also registered his bid for the presidency. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave a speech earlier Monday, alluding to qualities that Qalibaf himself has highlighted and potentially signaling his support.

However, many know Qalibaf who as a former Revolutionary Guard general was part of a violent crackdown on Iranian university students in 1999.

– The Associated Press