Profile:Top candidates in Iran's upcoming parliamentary elections

The one-week race of Iranian candidates for parliament seats will end Thursday and will be followed by a waiting period until the results are out.

From 12,000 registered candidates, 6,229 qualified candidates, including 586 women, are competing for 290 parliament seats for four-year terms.

Namely, some 21 people are competing for seats in the country's parliamentary election.

In Tehran, over 1,000 candidates are competing over a mere 30 seats.

For Friday's vote, the principalists, or conservatives as they are commonly referred to, are hoping not to lose their current sovereignty in the coming parliament.

The following figures are the notable mostly incumbent parliament members, among the principalist factions:

Ali Larijani:

Larijani was born in June 1957 and is an Iranian scholar, politician and Iran's incumbent parliamentary chairman.

Larijani was a former commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).

In previous governments, he served in a number of posts, including: government deputy minister of labor and social affairs led by Mir Hossein Mousavi; deputy minister of information and communications technology and acting minister of culture and Islamic guidance in Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's cabinet.

In 1994, he was appointed as head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) or state TV, and was in office until 2004.

He then became security adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in August 2004.

Larijani was a presidential candidate of the conservative alliance during Iran's 2005 elections but failed to earn enough votes.

In 2005, he was appointed by Khamenei as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, and took a tough stance on Iran's nuclear dossier during negotiations with world powers.

In 2008's parliamentary elections, Larijani won a seat from the religious city of Qom.

In May 2008, Larijani became parliament speaker and was reelected for the post in the following years.

Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel:

Haddad-Adel was born in May 1945 and is an Iranian scholar, politician and former parliament chairman.

Following Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, Haddad-Adel became a member of the Islamic Republic Party and served in several governmental posts, including: deputy of Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry in 1979 and Education Ministry deputy from 1982 to 1993.

Since 1995, he has served as head of the Iranian Academy of Persian Language and Literature - except for the period in August from 2004 to 2008.

He is also executive director of Iran's Islamic Encyclopedia Foundation.

Haddad-Adel, the incumbent parliament member, has served in parliament for 13 years in four terms.

He was one of the conservative candidates in 2013's presidential elections in Iran, but withdrew four days before elections.

He has been a loyal principalist in the Iranian political scene.

Since 2008, he has been advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Currently, he is a member of parliament, as well as a member in the High Council of Cultural Revolution and the Expediency Discernment Council.

For the upcoming parliamentary elections, he is designated at the top list of Grand Coalition of the Principalists.

Mohammad-Hassan Aboutorabi Fard:

Aboutorabi Fard was born in 1953 and is a conservative Shiite cleric and currently the first deputy parliament speaker in Iran.

He attended the seminary of Najaf city in Iraq during his teens, and returned to the country before Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

Following the Islamic revolution's victory, he served as head of the ideological and political department of Iran's Defense Ministry and was present in the battle with Iraqi forces which raided the country between 1980 and 1988.

He has been a member of Iran's Combatant Clergy Association of Iran since 1986, the pragmatic-conservative clerical party.

Also in 1986, he was appointed as interim Friday prayers leader of Iran's Qazvin city and has remained in the post since then.

Aboutorabi Fard was a Qazvin parliamentary representative from 2004 until 2012, and since 2012 represents a Tehran legislator in Iran's parliament.

He registered for Iran's 2013 presidential elections, but later withdrew from the campaign.

For the upcoming parliamentary elections, he is on Principalists Grand Coalition list.

Ahmad Tavakoli:

Tavakoli was born in March 1951 and is a conservative representative from Tehran in the Iranian parliament and former director of the Majlis Research Center.

Tavakoli was labor minister under Mir Hossein Mousavi, Iran's last prime minister from 1981 to 1989.

He was also a presidential candidate in two previous Iranian presidential elections, running against moderate former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and previous reformist president Mohammad Khatami.

He founded Resalat, a conservative newspaper, then headed to the United Kingdom to study economics at Nottingham University, where he received his PhD.

Tavakoli is a critic of capitalism, and is supportive of the government's role in controlling the economy.

He was also a fierce critic of former hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his economic and domestic political stances.

He too is on the Principalists Grand Coalition list for Iran's Feb. 26 parliamentary elections.

Yahya Al-e Es'haq:

Al-e Es'haq was born in June 1949 and is an Iranian economist and politician who served as minister of commerce in Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's administration from 1993 to 1997.

He has been head of Tehran's Chamber of Commerce since 2009.

Al-e Es'haq was one of 2013's potential candidates for Iran's presidential elections but did not meet the necessary qualifications required by the Iranian vetting legislative body of Guardian Council therefore he was declined.

Recently, he has been critical of the country's politics, believing that "The political influence on Iran's economy is traumatic and must be stabilized."

He also believes that providing a secure environment for long-term investment can launch an economic boom in Iran.

He considers oil-free economies as the strategic solution to Iran's economic problems, saying that "For years, we've deliberated implementing an oil-free economy in the country, but so far we have failed in reaching this important target."

Iran's Parliament will be capable of dismissing cabinet ministers through no-confidence votes and impeaching the president in case of misconduct in office.

Parliament will also draft legislation, ratify international treaties, and approve the national budget.

The forthcoming Iranian elections are crucial as moderates and reformists, propelled by President Hassan Rouhani's administration, are keen on outnumbering conservatives in the coming parliament. Endit