The Times of Israel reports: “After Iran mourned president Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a recent helicopter crash, the nation’s focus turns to an election next month for his successor, with the conservative camp seeking a loyalist to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The lead-up to the early vote on June 28 has opened up the field to a broad range of hopefuls from all political parties. The big question for them is how many candidates will survive the vetting process in the Islamic Republic.

Ultraconservative Raisi, who had more than a year left of his first term, died on May 19 alongside his foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and six others when their helicopter crashed into a fog-shrouded mountainside.

They were laid to rest in multi-day funeral rites drawing mass crowds of mourners.

The June vote will be held during a turbulent time, as the Israel-Hamas war rages between Iran’s arch-foe Israel and the Tehran-backed Hamas terror group that slaughtered 1,200 people in southern Israel last October 7, and amid continued diplomatic tensions over Iran’s nuclear program…”