According to state media on Wednesday, Iran’s hardline Guardian Council has barred former pragmatic president Hassan Rouhani from running for office again in the March election for the Assembly of Experts, which selects and has the authority to remove the country’s supreme leader.
Founded in 1982, the 88-member assembly oversees the most powerful authority but has seldom actively impacted policy decisions.
Since its members are only elected every eight years, the new assembly is anticipated to have a major influence in selecting the 84-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s successor.
Nearly a moderate, Rouhani won massive victories in both the 2013 and 2017 presidential elections by promising to lessen Iran’s diplomatic isolation.
However, after striking a nuclear agreement with six major states in 2015, the mid-ranking cleric infuriated political hardliners who opposed any rapprochement with the US “Great Satan.”.
When former US President Donald Trump abandoned the accord and reinstated sanctions that severely damaged Iran’s economy, the deal fell apart in 2018. Reviving the agreement has not succeeded.
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