{"id":2929,"date":"2017-05-14T09:18:21","date_gmt":"2017-05-14T06:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arabiangcis.org\/english\/?p=2929"},"modified":"2017-05-14T09:18:21","modified_gmt":"2017-05-14T06:18:21","slug":"irgc-plans-further-than-elections-to-next-supreme-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/news\/irgc-plans-further-than-elections-to-next-supreme-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"IRGC plans further than elections to next supreme leader"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), determined to preserve its dominant security role and its extensive economic interests, is silently backing a hardline candidate in the upcoming presidential elections, with an eye on a bigger prize, which is a successor to the current supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, reports Reuters. <\/strong>
\nHassan Rouhani who had a landslide victory in 2013 presidential election by promising social freedoms and reducing Iran\u2019s international isolation has a good chance in this year\u2019s election as well, wrote Reuters. But IRGC and Basij have taken steps in backing his main rival, the hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi.
\nIRGC-affiliated media are criticizing Rouhani\u2019s performance, and the experts say that this organization will probably use its entire means to mobilize Ebrahim Raisi\u2019s supporters and take them to voting centers.
\nIranian regime\u2019s hardliners worry that the second term of Hassan Rouhani\u2019s presidency will reduce the dominance of IRGC and its affiliated organizations over security and economic domains.
\nBut, disregarding who wins the presidential election, IRGC\u2019s bigger prize is to control and influence the process of succession of the regime\u2019s supreme leader, whose powers and authority are much more than the elected president.
\nKhamenei who has been the leader of Islamic Republic since 1979 is now 77 years old. Some experts say that Ebrahim Raisi\u2019s candidacy in the presidential elections is a test for someone who is being groomed to succeed the Iranian leader.
\nAccording to Islamic Republic of Iran\u2019s constitutional law, the leader\u2019s successor will be elected by Assembly of Experts whose members are elected for an 8-year period. Rouhani, a member of this Assembly, is one of those who gained most votes, and his allies also won almost all the seats in this Assembly from Tehran.
\nBut many members of this Assembly are not clearly associated with any of the two hardline or reformist camp, and the faction that will win the election can somehow have the advantage in gaining support for its candidate for supreme leader.
\nIRGC has long been making its preference known. In mid-May, they arrested dozens of administrators of a reformist social network on Telegram Channel. From the viewpoint of reformists and critics, this IRGC\u2019s measure was open intervention in election activities, and of course, against those forces that IRGC considers as its rivals.
\nRadio Farda<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), determined to preserve its dominant security role and its extensive economic interests, is silently backing a hardline candidate in the upcoming presidential elections, with an eye on a bigger prize, which is a successor to the current supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, reports Reuters. Hassan Rouhani who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":2930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1730,52,42,1296,1623,1659,695,12,1731,355,386,361,73,680,38,678,28,304],"class_list":["post-2929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-1730","tag-52","tag-agcis","tag-arabian-gulf-center-for-iranian-studies","tag-assembly-of-experts","tag-ebrahim-raisi","tag-hardliners","tag-iran","tag-iranian-economy","tag-irgc","tag-khamenei","tag-media","tag-press","tag-reuters","tag-rouhani","tag-supreme-leader","tag-tehran","tag-telegram"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2929"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2933,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2929\/revisions\/2933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}