Iran's College of Cardinals: The Assembly of Experts

The Assembly of Experts, one of three institutions whose members are directly elected by popular vote (the parliament and the presidency are the others), is part of Iran's complex constitutional structure of theocratic, democratic and authoritarian governance.

While the Iranian constitution appears to grant the Assembly of Experts a democratic and supervisory role, the constitution also grants the Guardian Council the power to regulate how the experts are made eligible for election (such as drawing up their exams and conducting their interviews). The Guardian Council itself is appointed by the Supreme Leader and serves at his pleasure. And the Supreme Leader reserves the power to ratify, or reject, an expert's election. The contradiction is a clear conflict of interest that the constitution leaves unresolved, undermining the claim that the Assembly of Experts is either independent or non-political. The assembly is, essentially, a tool of the Supreme Leader disguised as an elected, democratic institution.

Still, The 2006 vote for the Assembly of Experts, in December that year, was telling: The Guardian Council disqualified from running most of the candidates aligning themselves with hardliner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad's spiritual mentor, Ayatollah Muhammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi (a sort of Iranian Antonin Scalia), won a seat with 823,602 votes, but most of his allies did not, and the slightly more moderate Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president and rival to Ahmadinejad, won almost double that number of votes.

Some 65 candidates who won election to the assembly are close to Rafsanjani, making him the front-runner for Supreme Leader, if and when Ali Khamenei, who was 70 ion 2009, ever dies.

See my full FAQ, What Is Iran's Assembly of Experts?

See Also:

• What Is Iran's Council of Guardians?
• What Is a Supreme Leader, Anyway?
• Read the Iranian Constitution