Who will be Iran’s Next Supreme Leader?

• 12.14.2015, 15:46
•  Region,  World

Iran is getting ready for the next Supreme Leader’s elections. Iranian former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said the Iranian committee is examining potential candidates to be the next Supreme Leader. According to Reuters, this is the first time the Iranian official is talking publicly about succession. It is expected that talks on the issue will intensify as the election of the Assembly of Experts, the clerical body that appoints the Supreme Leader, will take place in February.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the current Supreme Leader, is Iran’s most powerful official. As Supreme Leader, he has either direct or indirect control over the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government, as well as the military, United States Institute of Peace reports. Major domestic and foreign policy decisions require his consent. Ali Khamenei became the Supreme Leader in 1989 and has never left the country since that time. From 1981 to 1989 he served as Iran’s President.

Ali Khamenei is the second Supreme Leader in the country’s history. The first one was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of Iran’s 1979 revolution. Ali Khamenei has become the Supreme Leader with the help of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Today, three decades later, he has emerged as one of the most powerful Iranian leaders of the last century. He is the second longest-serving Iranian leader of the last century, after Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

The election of the Assembly of Experts takes place once every 10 years. The Assembly consists of 82 members. There are two main fractions – conservatives and moderates.

The conservatives, who dominate the Assembly, support Ayatollah Khamenei. They believe the leader of the Islamic regime is the representative of God on Earth. The moderates believe in the divine role of the Supreme Leader but hold that he takes his legitimacy from the people and should be responsible to them. According to BBC, some moderate members have called for changes to the current leadership model, suggesting the Ayatollah Khamenei's successor should serve for a fixed term rather than for life. However, Ali Khamenei has been against these proposals.

Iran’s current moderate President Hassan Rouhani and former President Rafsanjani, who are close allies and members of the Assembly, hope to use the popularity they have gained by striking a nuclear deal with world powers to win the majority of seats in the Assembly. The most likely candidate from the moderate fraction is Rafsanjani.

There are also two other influential names among the possible candidates. Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the current Supreme Leader, who is close to the conservatives, and Hassan Khomeini, the randson of the former leader who supports the moderates, BBC reports.

Some analysts say in the upcoming elections the possibility of the moderate fraction’s victory is higher.