Iran's former President Hassan Rouhani was excluded from the election to the Council of Experts.
Image: AP
Iran's former President Rouhani was disqualified from the election to the Council of Experts. He should have no influence on the succession to the Supreme Leader. The current President Raisi is guaranteed a place.
GA month before the election of the Iranian Council of Experts, one result has already been determined: President Ebrahim Raisi will be represented on the body again. He is running out of competition. All other candidates in his South Khorasan constituency were disqualified on Friday. It was already clear beforehand that the leadership in Tehran did not want to take any risks in the upcoming “elections”. Reform-oriented politicians should not even be allowed to run. Last week, former President Hassan Rouhani was excluded from the election. Otherwise he could have positioned himself as a political counterpoint to his successor Raisi. Rouhani responded to his disqualification with clear words. It is proof of the “unconstitutional actions of the ruling totalitarian minority”.
The election to the Council of Experts is particularly important this time because the 88-member body is officially tasked with appointing his successor in the event of the Supreme Leader's death. Ali Khamenei is 84 years old. Council members will be elected on March 1 for eight-year terms. The likelihood that they will have an impact on the future of the country is high. What this impact will look like remains to be seen. One can assume that the Revolutionary Guard will have a say in the succession question, although it has no mandate to do so. There has only been one change at the top since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Khamenei followed in the footsteps of the late revolutionary leader Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989.