Why Iran’s Supreme Leader Wants Jalili for President
With his loyalty to the supreme leader and lack of ties to established groups, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili appears to have Khamenei’s backing.
While Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has repeatedly said that he does not favor any candidate in the June 14 presidential election, there is growing evidence that nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili is the man Khamenei would most like to see replace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Monday’s announcement that former speaker of the parliament Gholamali Haddad Adel, whose daughter is married to Khamenei’s oldest son, Mojtaba, is dropping out of the race will improve the chances for remaining conservatives, especially Jalili's.
The Iran-Iraq War veteran, who lost a leg in the 1980–1988 conflict, is similar to Ahmadinejad in his modest lifestyle but has a personality that is as bland as the current president’s is vivid. Jalili’s former diplomatic colleagues remember his habit of returning dollars to the Foreign Ministry after trips abroad instead of taking advantage of the widening gap between the Iranian currency and the greenback.
Jalili is also distinguished by having exhibited no prior ambitions toward the presidency. His only motivation in entering the race now appears to be a sense of accountability toward the “future of the system,” an indirect indication of backing from Khamenei’s office, where Jalili previously served. A splashy social media campaign also points to the system’s mobilization behind him.
