TEHRAN, Iran — In October 2014, Ayatollah Mohammad-Reza Mahdavi Kani, an influential leader of the conservative coalition, passed away. The event has posed significant problems for Iran's conservatives. Mahdavi Kani's successor as the head of the Assembly of Experts — the body that chooses the supreme leader — must be chosen by early 2015. Furthermore, both the Assembly of Experts elections and the parliamentary elections in 2016 will need a unifying voice within the conservative camp — a voice that is currently lacking with the passing of Mahdavi Kani.
One person being unofficially discussed as successor is Ali Akbar Nategh-Nouri, the current head of the Inspection Office of the Supreme Leader of Iran. Nategh-Nouri could recover the relative solidarity of earlier decades within the conservative camp or, at least, prevent it from further fracture.