The waning influence of Iran’s leading moderate Hassan Rouhani

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As Iran’s best-known moderate Hassan Rouhani was being blocked from the powerful body with responsibility to appoint the country’s supreme leader, his hardline successor as president, Ebrahim Raisi, was handed a clear run at the same authority.

The publication late last month of the list of eligible candidates for the elected Assembly of Experts rammed home to Iran’s pro-reform forces that their influence was badly waning, as hardliners consolidated their grip on power. The blocking of a raft of reformist candidates for parliamentary elections and the predicted low turnout for both votes on March 1 has only added to their disillusionment.

The elections come at a critical juncture for Iran, where the 84-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has held sway as the political and religious authority since 1989. His death over the next eight years would hand the assembly the job of picking a successor, determining the country’s future for decades to come.

The Guardian Council that vets Iran’s electoral candidates gave no reason for preventing Rouhani, president for eight years until 2021, from standing for the 88-member assembly. As he was being disqualified in the Tehran constituency, Raisi was approved as the only candidate in South Khorasan, meaning he would run unopposed in the electoral process.

“When a single vote is enough for Ebrahim Raisi to enter the Assembly of Experts, why should that be called an election?” asked Ahmad Zeidabadi, a reformist activist. It was all part of a hardline plan “to take control of the ruling bodies and transform [themselves] into a hegemonic power with the final say on political matters,” he said.

The question of whether the hardline-run Guardian Council would sideline Rouhani was…