On January 7, Javan news website, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), published an article in which it said, “[Former regime president Hassan] Rouhani is a candidate for the Assembly of Experts election and is under the impression that it is highly probable that the next Assembly will have to make that hard and important decision. He has not hidden this thought and has expressed it. Of course, he did not mention how he predicted such a thing, but he did not predict that he might not be the one making the difficult and important decision himself at that time!”
A few weeks after that article was published, some of the vague notions it contained have become clearer, especially after the Guardian Council disqualified Rouhani. First, that “hard and important decision” is the successor to regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei. Second, with the disqualification of Rouhani, that decision will be a bit less difficult.
This issue has been observed both in the article of the IRGC outlet and in the statements of elements from different regime factions.
The article continued, “Rouhani’s associates are trying to elevate his position to a level higher than presidency, but this disqualification has completely shattered this daydream.”
A member of Majlis, Javad Karimi Ghoddousi, through his statements clarifies the meaning of Rouhani’s “daydream” and how it has been undermined.
On January 24, Ghoddousi posted on X: “Someone who had the talent and determination to ‘build a Saqifeh’ was disqualified by the respectable Guardian Council” The term “Saqifeh” is a reference to Khamenei’s successor.
On January 27th, the state-run Hamdeli newspaper in reference to Karimi Ghoddousi’s knowledge of behind-the-scenes discussions, sheds more light on the matter and wrote, “This statement by Karimi Ghoddousi strengthens the mindset that Rouhani could have been a new umbrella for a theory and ideology contradicting hardliners, bringing together many around the axis of critical currents in the future Assembly of Experts.” The implication is that the reason for Rouhani’s disqualification is that he could have been the focal point for gathering scattered factions within the Assembly of Experts during that “hard and important decision.”
In an article titled “Purification of the Assembly of Experts,” in referring to Rafsanjani’s pivotal role in replacing Khomeini with Khamenei in 1989 and Assembly of Experts’ role in imposing Rouhani on Khamenei, the state-run Ham-Mihan newspaper, on January 27, wrote, “They prevented [Rouhani] from repeating what Hashemi Rafsanjani did in 1989.”
The article continued: “Many observers also believe that the main factor behind Rouhani’s disqualification is his influence on the process and equations of succession. This possibility, and future political architects of Iran cannot simply ignore it. In other words, closing the path for Rouhani within the clergy signifies opening the way for others in the future developments of Iran.”
In 2015, Ahmad Khatami, a member of the Guardian Council, spoke about the duty of the Assembly of Experts regarding the appointment of the Supreme Leader. He announced the formation of a committee composed of “a group of prominent individuals and experts” and emphasized that their task was not to appoint the leader but to “identify those who are eligible for leadership… The committee carried out this task with complete confidentiality, and if the leader wishes, these names will only be presented to him.”
This confidentiality, which requires that even 85 out of 88 members of the Assembly of Experts be unaware of it, is an indication of the critical crisis that exists within the current system, which highlights the blatant manipulation in the upcoming elections.
Source » mojahedin