Who will lead? – Tehran Bureau: Via Tehran Bureau.

[TEHRAN BUREAU] While Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini lived, his political and religious pre-eminence meant his word was law. Many Iranians still assign him an aura of infallibility.

But Ayatollah Khomeini left behind a political system with checks and balances. One of these is the power of the Experts Assembly, a clerical body chaired by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, to remove the supreme leader (rahbar), Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

With tensions between Rafsanjani and Ayatollah Khamenei exacerbated by the presidential election, this power of the Experts Assembly (majlis-e khobregan) may explain why Rafsanjani has reportedly been spending time in Qom, the centre of the clerical establishment.

Some years ago, a Rafsanjani associate mentioned to me the option of a leadership council replacing the leader in the event of Ayatollah Khamenei’s demise. This was topical apparently because of rumours, especially in the United States, over the leader’s health.

Rafsanjani’s preference for a leadership council was supposedly that while he could be part of a council, he could not become leader as the masses would not accept a man who was not a sayyed, or descendant of the prophet Mohammad.

This might have been a delicate way of saying Rafsanjani was unpopular, as had been shown by the 2005 presidential election.

Another close associate of Rafsanjani showed no reaction to the council idea when I raised it with him. But, in any case, some in the Rafsanjani camp were already thinking of the leadership. Somewhat speculative at the time, this is now a more nagging issue.

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