Relationship with Khamenei could be tricky for next Iran president

Yahoo News:

Iran's choice of its next president will have a significant bearing on the power of the new government, analysts say, given the need to work alongside the regime's true number-one -- Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. READ MORE

The three main candidates in the race, pragmatic conservative Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, hardliner Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and reformist Mostafa Moin would each bring with them a very different style -- ranging from being able to exert plenty of power in their own right to being frustrated and marginalised.

"Since the beginning of the revolution, Khamenei has worked alongside strong personalities," said a prominent reformist official who asked not to be named when discussing the sensitive issue of Khamenei's powers.

When Khamenei served as president up to 1989, prime minister Mir Hossein Moussavi was seen as being able to stamp his own mark on policy. And when Khamenei became supreme leader, he had to work with the powerful Rafsanjani as president.

Even working with Khatami has been difficult, given the reformist cleric's overwhelming mandate and status as a popular official who is elected.

"We can therefore think that Khamenei would prefer a president upon which he could assert more his own vision for the Islamic republic," said the reformist politician.

Of the three leading contenders in the race, it is Moin who would be most likely to face a difficult relationship with the regime's head, who according to the constitution is leader until the reappearance of the 12th Shiite Imam.

Shiite Muslims believe the "hidden Imam" Mahdi, who disappeared in 873 AD, will one day return to earth and bring with him justice and peace.

In his campaigning, Moin has come dangerously close to challenging Khamenei's semi-divine role, prefering to view Khamenei in political terms and calling for his powers to be more clearly defined.

Such a call from an ordinary Iranian could leave them facing the wrath of the hardline judiciary, who view any questioning of the concept of the "velayat-e Faqih" -- which means "governorship of the jurist" and is the theological backbone of the regime -- as close to blasphemous.

Although this concept was never directly challenged by President Khatami, ending his second consecutive and therefore final term in office, his reformist agenda which pushed the boundaries of the political debate nevertheless appeared to rattle the regime.

This in turn sparked a fierce backlash against the reformists from the hardline-controlled institutions that surround Khamenei, causing eight years of political paralysis between the elected and non-elected state apparatus.

Such is certainly not the risk if Qalibaf is elected, political observers say.

Qalibaf is a former national police chief and, perhaps more importantly, a veteran of the hardline Revolutionary Guards -- the ideological army established after the 1979 Islamic revolution to protect the clerics from both foreign and domestic "enemies".

The same would also apply to Ali Larijani, another Guards veteran who currently serves as Khamenei's advisor.

The head of Iran's main reformist party, Mohammad Reza Khatami, has predicted a right-wing election win on June 17 would merely bring a president who is little more than a "cabinet secretary" for the supreme leader.

But there are questions over Khamenei's relationship with Rafsanjani, who is already seen as the regime's de facto number-two and who is seeking a comeback in an elected position to push through his more moderate conservative vision.

Many analysts have predicted a Rafsanjani win could involve some difficult power sharing on the part of Khamenei.

Rafsanjani, however, has dismissed any talks of a power struggle.

"We are totally in agreement," the 70-year-old cleric said in an interview. "In Iran, there are no two people who are closer than me and the supreme leader. We have known each other for 55 years. It is very rare for us to disagree."

But if he does win, Rafsanjani "can be expected to exert more power than Khatami did," a diplomat and analyst said.

"We can also expect a Rafsanjani presidency would be a challenge to certain principles," he said, adding that pragmatists within the regime "are not oblivious to the fact that in Iraq, the Shiites now hold power but within a totally different system."

Others disagree.

"Why would there be any tension?" questioned another analyst. "They have common interests, they need each other. It was Khamenei who kept Rafsanjani at the top of the regime at the end of his last presidency."