Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the leading opposition-backed candidate in Iran's presidential election, was disqualified on Tuesday from standing in a blow to those hoping for significant change when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad leaves office.

Iranian state-run television broadcast a statement by the interior ministry on Tuesday night announcing the final list of candidates. It did not include Rafsanjani or President Ahmadinejad's close ally, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei.

Eight men were allowed to enter the race for the election on 14 June, including Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili; the mayor of Tehran, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf; and former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati. Hassan Rouhani, a reformist who is seen as having little chance of victory, was also allowed to run. Jalili is widely seen as the favourite candidate of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

More than 680 people, among them some 40 prominent figures, registered as potential candidates this month in the hope of succeeding Ahmadinejad, but the six clergymen and six jurists of the Guardian Council allowed only a handful to stand.

The council's spokesman, Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, said on Tuesday the vetting process had ended and the final list of candidates had been sent to the interior ministry but did not name those qualified, the semi-official Isna news agency reported. The candidates were then announced on national TV.

Conservative websites and semi-official agencies had earlier reported that Rafsanjani, 78, who has won the support of the country's reformers, had been disqualified because he is seen as too feeble to govern the country. His supporters said the reports amounted to no more than rumours spread by rival camps.

"If an individual who wants to take up a high post can only perform a few hours of work each day, naturally that person cannot be confirmed," Kadkhodaei said earlierthis week, boosting speculation that Rafsanjani would be blocked. Two of the Guardian Council's 12 members are older than Rafsanjani.

The hardline Kayhan newspaper, whose director is appointed by Khamenei, ran an editorial on Tuesday calling on the Guardian Council to disqualify Rafsanjani, saying he had become the favourite candidate of the country's enemies and opposition.

"A divine and serious responsibility rests on the shoulders of the Guardian Council. It is to rescue Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani from a dangerous bait that has been set for him by foreign enemies and their domestic associates," wrote Kayhan's Hossein Shariatmadari. Rafsanjani's office fought back by issuing a statement saying his opponents had resorted to fabricating news in order to distort the old man's image.

Rafsanjani's disqualification would come as a surprise to many of his supporters, who thought it unlikely the Guardian Council would reject him, given his crucial role in founding the Islamic republic and his position as one of the country's great political survivors.

Ali Motahari, an influential MP who was appointed on Tuesday as head of a major campaign group supporting Rafsanjani, predicted that Khamenei might intervene to reinstate Rafsanjani.

"Rafsanjani played a significant role in founding the Islamic republic … His disqualification will call into question the very principles of our revolution and the principles of the ruling system of the Islamic republic," he told the semi-official Isna news agency. Rafsanjani is head of Iran's expediency council, which mediates between the parliament and the Guardian Council.

Mashaei, who is seen as a nationalist figure, was widely expected to be barred despite Ahmadinejad's unwavering support. Supporters of Khamenei have accused Mashaei of putting Iran ahead of Islam and not showing enough loyalty to the supreme leader.

The Iran News Network, a pro-Ahmadinejad website, reported on Monday that a group of activists and campaigners sympathetic to Mashaei had been arrested and some summoned for questioning. Access to at least four pro-Mashaei websites was blocked last week. Analysts fear that Ahmadinejad might go out with all guns firing following Mashaei's disqualification. The president was reported to have cancelled three of his provincial visits this week to stay in the capital, Tehran.

Meanwhile, the Fars news agency, which is affiliated to the elite Revolutionary Guards, published a series of interviews with some leading clerics who called on people to respect the Guardian Council's decision.

Rafsanjani was a close confidant of Khamenei for much of the 1980s and 1990s but the pair fell out when the former lost to Ahmadinejad in the 2005 presidential vote. The rift between the two widened when Rafsanjani voiced moderate support for Iran's Green movement in 2009 while Khamenei stood firm by Ahmadinejad and denied any allegations of vote rigging.

Rafsanjani's last-minute entry in Iran's presidential race had revived hopes among the country's reformers for a change in the country's trajectory and infuriated hardliners who believed his candidacy would challenge Khamenei's authority.