The election for the Assembly of Experts, a body of 86 Islamic theologians who are tasked with electing the supreme leader of Iran, rarely receives the attention and turnout of presidential elections. However, given their eight-year term limits and the current supreme leader’s age, the new body elected February 2016 may ultimately decide the most significant position within the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Most Iranian politicians rarely discuss who will take over for the still relatively healthy and highly active 76-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after his passing. Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a member of the current Assembly of Experts and also a candidate in the upcoming elections, broke this trend by announcing that the assembly has formed a committee to review the future supreme leader.

In an interview with Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA), Rafsanjani said, “When it is decided that the supreme leader will be changed, or not be here and for someone else to come, once again a great task must be undertaken.” Rafsanjani perhaps played the single most important role in pushing for Khamenei’s election as supreme leader in 1989 by arguing that former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was in favor of his candidacy.

Rafsanjani continued, “Of course, they are preparing and researching and have put together a group who are reviewing individuals so that those who have the qualifications, if later there is an event, they could put them forward for a vote. This is the main work of the [Assembly of] Experts.”