Iran's hard-liners may face power struggle despite Raisi win
Incoming Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi is widely discussed as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s successor, but there may be rumblings of a power struggle in the conservative camp.
Two days after the Iranian presidential election June 20, Vahid Haqqanian, a senior official in the supreme leader's office, provided his analysis of the election process in a public memo.
Known as the supreme leader’s right-hand man, Haqqanian argued that the decision of Mohsen Rezaei, Amir Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi and Abdolnasser Hemmati to stay in the presidential elections until the end proved that the enemies' arguments saying these candidates were back-up candidates for Ebrahim Raisi proved to be wrong.
Haqqanian, who is the deputy for special affairs at the supreme leader's office, also admitted in his controversial memo that boycotting the election campaign, widespread disqualifications of rival candidates and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call for boycotting the elections posed a serious challenge to the Islamic Republic.
He also highlighted that Rezaei and Ghazizadeh Hashemi, despite the attempts by "a certain perspective," remained in the elections until the end and did a great service to the Islamic Republic by not quitting.
