Two heavyweight candidates, Chief Justice Ebrahim Raeesi and former Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, registered to run in Iran's presidential election on Saturday, the final day of a five-day process. Both are likely to be among the final four candidates running in the race on June 18.

Raeesi who arrived at the Interior Ministry in the afternoon to register, is Supreme Ali Khamenei's appointee and widely believed to be his favored candidate, faces no challenges from the election watchdog, the Guardian Council. To the contrary, he may even aspire to be Iran's next Supreme Leader.

The Council will not have an easy task if they decide to eliminate Ali Larijani. The Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) on Friday suggested that Larijani has received the blessing of several very senior clerics in Qom including Grand Ayatollahs Lotfollah Safi Golpaygan, Abdollah Javadi-Amoli and Hossein Nouri-Hamedani as well as the representative of the Iraq-based Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani to run.

Unlike others, Raeesi who won 38.3% of the votes running against President Hassan Rouhani in 2017, before showing up at the interior ministry to register issued a statement to announce his decision to run.

In his statement, the Chief Justice blasted the Rouhani administration for the host of economic problems plaguing the country and “deviating” from “the ideals of the Islamic revolution.” He promised to fight corruption and poverty and to use "intelligent and innovative diplomacy" to overcome the US sanctions.

"I have entered the scene independently to transform the management of the country; to fight relentlessly against poverty and corruption, humiliation and discrimination; and with respect toward all candidates and political groups," he declared.

Larijani, a moderate conservative, however, kickstarted his campaign with a speech full of innuendos. "It's naïve to think that [the country's problems] are solvable with a few theatrical, populistic actions," he told reporters before his speech alluding to the eventful registration of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's on Wednesday [May 12] adding that there was no "magic key" to the country's problems or that a  solution could be found by "playing superman" or "branding [opponents] with hot irons".

Unlike Raeesi who blamed Iran's economic problems on the administration's failure to use domestic resources and potentials -- as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has always insisted -- Larijani said delay in resolving "complex international and regional issues" was responsible for problems and would harm the Iranians. "The main goal of the country's foreign policy should be facilitating international relations to [help] domestic economic development," he said while stressing the importance of "stabilization and balance" in international relations.

In an apparent reference to the recent row over the role of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) in Iran's foreign relations, highlighted by Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif’s comments in a supposedly confidential interview published by Iran International TV on April 25, Larijani said resolving complex international issues required "experts", not those whose "aberrant illusions" result in international banks freezing the money the country earns even when it sells its oil with great difficulty due to sanctions.