TEHRAN - Powerful Iranian cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani announced Monday that he was standing again for president in the June 17 election, official media said.
"The issue of the presidency is my current preoccupation and although I would like somebody else to take this responsibility, I think I should take this bitter medicine," he was quoted as saying by the official news agency IRNA.
Rafsanjani, seen as a pragmatic conservative, is currently the head of the Expediency Council -- Iran's top political arbitration body. The charismatic politician served as president from 1989 to 1997.
He has for months been openly mulling a bid to take back Iran's number two job, and has been widely seen as a front-runner for the presidency.
04/25/2005 12:35 GMT