assan Khomeini, grandson of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, is entering politics with plans to seek election next year to the country’s powerful Assembly of Expert
assan Khomeini, grandson of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, is entering politics with plans to seek election next year to the country’s powerful Assembly of Experts.
Khomeini, 43, the best-known of the former supreme leader’s 15 grandchildren, has chosen to stand in the February 26 ballot after receiving broad support, the ISNA news agency reported.
“Hassan Khomeini, after the massive urging of different groups and after consulting various personalities, decided to register for Assembly of Experts elections,” family member Seyed Ali Khomeini was quoted as saying Thursday.
The mid-ranking cleric is considered a reformist in outlook and has close ties to that camp’s most senior figures, such as Mohammad Khatami, who was Pesident from 1997 to 2005.
The 86-member Assembly’s role is to monitor the work of the supreme leader, currently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 76. In theory, it can dismiss him, and would be responsible for picking a replacement.
It would have the same task should Khamenei die. Members are chosen by the public, for a term of eight years, from a list that is pre-screened by another powerful committee, the Guardian Council.
Both the Assembly and the Council are considered to be dominated by conservatives. Khomeini’s candidature follows a recent declaration that one of Iran’s most senior clerics and its President from 1989 to 1997, Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, will again stand in the Assembly elections.
