Iran Bans Ex-Pres. Rouhani From Re-election to Elite Council

Facts

Iran on Wednesday banned the moderate former Pres. Hassan Rouhani from contesting in the March 1 election for the 88-member Assembly of Experts.¹
The assembly — which has the power to select and expel the nation’s supreme leader — will choose the successor to current Supreme Leader Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei. The 84-year-old has held the position since 1989.²
Rouhani has been part of the assembly, whose members are elected every eight years, for three terms since 1999. No reason has been offered for his rejection.³
This comes as Iran’s parliamentary election is also set for March 1, with Iran’s 12-member Guardian Council having reportedly rejected hundreds of candidates. According to state media, out of 12K parliamentary candidates, only 30 mid-ranking moderates have been given the green light to run.⁴
The former president, who was in office from 2013 to 2021, announced last November that he was seeking a new term in the assembly. Rouhani is a sharp critic of his successor, Ebrahim Raisi’s reign.⁵
Rouhani had finalized Iran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six world powers, but it fell apart in 2018 after then-Pres. Donald Trump withdrew the US from the deal.²

Anti-Iran narrative, as provided by Iran International. It doesn’t look like the Guardian Council takes well to moderate candidates, as seen by the rejection of Rouhani’s candidature and the hundreds of parliamentary hopefuls who don’t conform to the regime’s extreme doctrine. This engineered election will undoubtedly see a weak voter turnout, which will only further expose the regime’s illegitimacy.
Pro-Iran, as provided by IRNA. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei, has called for a fair parliamentary election in March, while the Guardian Council has done its due diligence to ensure that its candidate vetting process complies with its legal obligations. It’s now the responsibility of the electorate to vote in the upcoming elections.