When Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani noted today that he would lose his post as chairman of the Assembly of Experts, a body which appoints and theoretically can even dismiss Iran’s Supreme Leader, to Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani, he cautiously rather chose not to run for election again. He had chaired the Assembly since 2007.

It took one-and-half years after Rafsanjani’s remarkable Friday prayer sermon of July 2009 (see the transcript on Juan Cole’s Informed Comment blog here), when he had aligned himself to the then pretty impressive Green Movement after the disputed presidential election (what de facto deprived him from further Friday Prayers in Tehran), to finally remove him more or less from power, though he is still chairman of Iran’s Expediency Council (since 2002), a body which arbitrates disputes between Iran’s parliament, the majlis, and the Council of Guardians. Leaders of the Green Movement Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, together with their wives, are under strict house arrest right now but their current whereabouts are not known.

See my appraisal of Rafsanjani’s sermon of July 2009 here.

Last modified March 8, 2011.