Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

First, he was a Wall Street upstart. Then he became a legend. Then a convicted felon.

Now he's got a clean record thanks to a presidential pardon this week. For many, Michael Milken is

emblematic of Wall Street avarice and greed. For others, he remains a hero. And traveling the world is much easier if your passport is widely accepted without a visa.

By that measure, Japan's is the world's most welcomed.

So why is it that so few citizens have them?

First up, though, Iran will hold its parliamentary elections today, but they'll be far from democratic.

The Guardian Council, which is a group of clerics and Islamic jurists, they decide who is allowed to run in the election.

Roger McShane is our Middle East editor.

And they're a pretty conservative bunch, as you might imagine.

They've blocked many of the reformers and moderates who would have liked to have stood.

14,000 people in total applied to be candidates.

It's a 290C parliament, and the Guardian Council rejected more than half of those candidates. It's mostly people who wanted to see more

outreach to the West or who wanted to see changes to the nature of the clerical regime.

Now, the council has always been strict about who can run in elections. You are never going to get a candidate that forcefully rejected the system of clerical rule.

But the range of candidates allowed to run this time around is more narrow than it has been in years.

I mean, in many constituencies, voters don't really have any choice at all.

And if the only choice is the country's hardliners, that could have consequences for America.

A few days ago, we took bold and decisive action to defend American lives and deliver American

justice.

Last month, the Trump administration killed Iran's top military commander, Qasem Soleimani,

in a drone strike.

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