The United States on Friday called into question the credibility of Iran’s presidential election next month, criticising the disqualification of candidates and accusing the government of disrupting Internet access.

Iran’s Guardian Council, the state body that vets all candidates, had struck former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and others from the roster in the June 14 ballot.

“The Council narrowed a list of almost seven hundred potential candidates down to the sort of…officials of their choice, based solely on who represents the regime’s interests,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters during a visit to Israel.

“That is hardly an election by standards which most people in most countries judge free, fair, open, accessible, accountable elections.”

Kerry, whose country’s decades-old rift with Iran has widened over the latter’s disputed nuclear programme, said Washington saw “troubling signs” that the Iranian government was slowing down or cutting off Internet access.

(Reuters)