Tehran (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani plans to run for president in the upcoming June 17 elections.

"The issue of the presidency is my current preoccupation and although I would like somebody else to take this responsibility, I think I must take this bitter medicine," he was quoted as saying by IRNA, Iran's official news agency.

Rafsanjani, 70, who heads the Expediency Council (Iran's top political arbitration body), was elected twice—in 1989 and 1993—to the four-year position. 

Under Iran's constitution, term limitations allow only two consecutive terms. Current President Khatami is no longer eligible having been elected twice already, in 1997 and 2001.

Rafsanjani has not officially announced his candidacy; the deadline for becoming a candidate is mid-May.

However, he has been presenting himself as a pragmatic conservative, supporter of free enterprise and capable in the past in the past of building bridges with the West. Domestically, he has been traditionally conservative.

In a recent survey, he came on top of a list of possible candidates with 16 per cent of voter support.

The other contenders are state-television boss Ali Larijani who is running under the banner of the main conservative party, the Council for Coordinating Forces in the Islamic Revolution. Former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, populist ex-police Chief Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and former Revolutionary Guards Chief Mohsen Rezai are also running.

With reformers lacking a strong candidate, analysts say Rafsanjani could count on the backing of moderates hoping to stem a hard-line takeover, whilst holding onto the support of centrists and traditional conservatives. (LF)