PHOTO: Seyed Hassan Khomeini with the Supreme Leader, June 2010


Iran’s Guardian Council has barred the grandson of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini, from February’s elections for the Assembly of Experts.

Seyed Hassan Khomeini had entered politics for the first time to join the 88-member Assembly, which chooses the Supreme Leader. His son confirmed the disqualification on Tuesday morning.

Earlier State news agency IRNA said, from “a source close to Khomeini”, that the cleric had neither been approved nor rejected.

The Council disqualified almost 80% of the candidates for the Assembly, passing only 166 of 801 hopefuls. Another 207 have been disqualified, and the other cases are pending.

Last week the Council — with 12 members appointed by the Supreme Leader and judiciary — banned 60% of the more than 12,000 candidates for Parliament, including 50 current MPs and 99% of the 3,000 reformist applicants.

See Iran Daily, Jan 22: Rouhani Hits Back At Supreme Leader Over Clampdown on Elections

Tasnim News had posted on Monday that Khomeini had been barred, but quickly removed the article. The site said that former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is hoping to regain the chair of the Assembly, will be allowed to stand.

Earlier this month speculation over Khomeini’s fate circulated after the cleric did not take a written test to establish his religious credentials, a requirement set by the Council for many candidates. Khomeini’s staff said he had not been notified of the examination.

Khomeini has not publicly allied with any political faction; however, analysts see his views as close to those of President Rouhani and Rafsanjani. The cleric was also harassed after the disputed 2009 Presidential election, with supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the “winner” in the vote, shouting him down as he spoke at the ceremony for the anniversary of his grandfather’s death.

Iran’s hardliners and some conservatives have been warning of a centrist Rouhani-Rafsanjani bloc, allied with reformists, gaining power in February’s elections. MPs, clerics, and military commanders have accused centrists and reformists, including Rafsanjani, of pursuing a foreign-backed “sedition” to undermine the Islamic Republic.

President Rouhani unsuccessfully tried to check the Council’s banning power last summer. After last week’s purge of candidates, Rouhani — defying the Supreme Leader — said he would pursue the matter to avoid a “one-party state”, meeting the Council to remedy the “mistake”.