Iran leader’s brother announces candidateship for key assembly

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Oct. 22 – The brother of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced that he had registered to stand in the upcoming Assembly of Experts polls.
Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Oct. 22 – The brother of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced that he had registered to stand in the upcoming Assembly of Experts polls.

Hojatoleslam Hadi Khamenei told the government-run news agency Fars that he was participating as a candidate of the Combatant Clerics Association, a grouping of Shiite clerics who supported former President Mohammadi Khatami.

Hadi Khamenei is a member of the group’s central committee.

The group was formed as an off-shoot of the hard-line Combatant Clergy Association which is headed by the powerful Ayatollah Mohammad-Reza Mahdavi Kani.

The Supreme Leader’s brother said that he did not know whether the hard-line Guardian Council would approve his candidateship during the vetting process.

A total of 495 religious figures have registered to stand in the December 15 polls. The 86-member Assembly of Experts is an exclusively clerical body entrusted with the task of selecting the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution. Prominent names in the list of candidates are former President and current State Expediency Council Chairman Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Chairman of the Guardian Council Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, former chief nuclear negotiator with the West Hassan Rowhani, and radical Shiite cleric Ayatollah Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah Yazdi.