Iran's energized conservatives move to unite ahead of upcoming polls
Reinvigorated by the Trump administration’s harsh rhetoric against the Rouhani administration, divided Iranian conservatives appear to be coalescing around a new grouping.
Iran's hard-liners and conservatives appear to be maneuvering to jointly form a new grouping ahead of the 2020 parliamentary and 2021 presidential elections. Planning for such a move would entail resolving the differences among the senior figures of the camp.
In 2017, before the presidential elections, hard-liners and conservatives established a group called JAMNA, the Persian acronym for Popular Front of Islamic Revolution Forces. The name of the group was in line with hard-liners' attempts to label their rivals as disloyal to the pillars of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. However, this probably stemmed from their own concerns, and it was possibly just a method for making sure that votes were not lost to the Reformist-backed incumbent Hassan Rouhani.
