DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Iran's judiciary chief, a hard-line cleric linked to mass executions in 1988, registered Saturday to run in the Islamic Republic's presidential election next month, a vote that comes as negotiators struggle to resuscitate Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers.
The cleric, Ebrahim Raisi, is among the more prominent hopefuls -- he garnered nearly 16 million votes in the 2017 election. He lost that race to Iran's relatively moderate President Hassan Rouhani, whose administration struck the atomic accord.
Raisi's close ties to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his popularity could make him a favorite in the election. Analysts already believe that hard-liners enjoy an edge as Rouhani is term-limited from running again.
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The public has widely grown disenchanted with Rouhani's administration after 2018, when then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the nuclear deal.
Raisi offered fiery remarks to journalists at the Interior Ministry as he registered. He vowed that if he wins the June 18 vote, corruption will be "dried up."
Raisi, 60, had been named as a possible successor to Iran's 82-year-old supreme leader, leading some to suggest he wouldn't run in the race. His entry immediately saw some hard-liners announce they would withdraw, raising Raisi's prominence further among the candidates.
"I think he's someone that the system trusts, particularly Khamenei," said Sanam Vakil, the deputy director of Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa Program. "If you look at Raisi's biography and background, it reads quite similar to that of the supreme leader's.
Activists hold a jaded view of Raisi.
As the head of the judiciary, he oversees a justice system in Iran that remains one of the world's top executioners. United Nations experts and others have criticized Iran for detaining dual nationals and those with ties abroad to be used as bargaining chips in negotiations with the West.
Then there's the 1988 mass executions that came at the end of Iran's long war with Iraq. After Iran's then-Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini accepted a U.N.-brokered cease-fire, members of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, heavily armed by Saddam Hussein, stormed across the Iranian border in a surprise attack.
Iran ultimately blunted their assault, but the attack set the stage for the sham retrials of political prisoners, militants and others that would become known as "death commissions."
International rights groups estimate that as many as 5,000 people were executed, while the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq puts the number at 30,000. Iran has never fully acknowledged the executions.
Raisi, then a deputy prosecutor in Tehran, took part in some of the panels at Evin and Gohardasht prisons. A tape of a meeting of Raisi and his boss meeting prominent Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri leaked out in 2016, with Montazeri describing the executions as "the biggest crime in the history of the Islamic Republic."
The cleric never publicly acknowledged his role in the executions while campaigning for president in 2017. After his loss, Khamenei appointed him as head of the judiciary in 2019.
Other candidates who registered on Saturday include Ali Larijani, a prominent conservative voice and former parliament speaker who later allied himself with Rouhani. Another hopeful is Mohsen Hashemi Rafsanjani, the eldest son of the late former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and a prominent reformist on Tehran's city council.
Rouhani's senior Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri also registered, as did Central Bank chief Abdolanasser Hemmati.Iran's former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad registered Wednesday.
The Guardian Council will announce a final list of candidates by May 27 and a 20-day campaign season begins the following day.
Information for this article was contributed by Nasser Karimi of The Associated Press.
