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that he “ticks all the right boxes” for becoming Iran’s next Supreme Leader.
To the question of whether a failed bid for the presidency might not irreparably damage Raisi’s hopes in that regard, Vakil is clear that he will have to emerge from the contest with his credibility and reputation intact and that Iran’s “deep state” would not have put him forward “unless they thought he could win”.
Raisi is a 56-year-old mid-ranking cleric remembered for his 1980s membership of the so-called Islamic Revolution “death committee” that had thousands executed after interrogations into their religious beliefs and political affiliations. He is, says Vakil, “the deep state’s pick”.
“Nothing if not a hardliner, he hails from the extremist faction within the Combatant Clergy Association, a conservative political group,” she notes in the co-authored article.
Vakil describes Iran’s deep state as the result of Khamenei’s efforts over 28 years to steadily build up an intricate security, intelligence, and economic superstructure made up of underlings fiercely loyal to him and his idea of the Islamic Republic.
She contends that Khamenei has gradu- ally undermined the role of Iran’s elected government, concentrating power in his own office and forming a strong relation- ship with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the parallel military force beside the regular army responsible for protecting Iran’s security and Islamic character. His methods have largely been financial, she says, pointing to the many IRGC-affiliated businesses that have bought state firms at below market rates and won lucrative government contracts.
Deep state officials care most about defending their institutions against
the “soft war” (jang-e narm) led by the West, she says, and in Khamenei’s eyes, the Islamic Republic’s survival will be secured by his “carefully built network of disciples”, most probably to be led by his close ally, the relatively young Raisi.
After registering his application for a presi- dential bid, Raisi, a former attorney-gener-
al who has referred to the US as the “Great Satan” that can never be trusted, told reporters: “Approaches have to change. We must create an economy that supports production and respects the role of the people in the economy. An economy that won’t be damaged by those days when there are social and political shocks."
In a March interview with state televi- sion, he commented that "as a servant of Astan Quds Razavi, I see the activation of a resistance economy as the only way to end poverty and deprivation in the country".
Critics have observed that his lack of executive experience could count against him with voters, but Vakil notes that as head of a massive and wealthy foundation he has actually been in practical charge of overseeing a sprawling business empire and numerous investments abroad.
Shortly before Raisi announced his intended run for the presidency, Tehran-based political analyst Sadegh Zibakalam told the daily Etemad that "if Raisi announces his candidacy, Rouhani will have to take him very seriously
and double his campaign efforts."
After registering his intention to run, Rouhani told the media: “I’ve come back again for Iran, I’ve come back again
for Islam, for better stability across
our country, for greater security and more progress. We have to gather again for Islam, to build Iran together. ”
Rouhani won the presidency in a first-round landslide in 2013 mainly thanks to the backing of young people and women. He pledged to bring Iran out of its international isolation by sealing a workable nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA) with world powers and commit- ted himself to developing a freer society.
There’s no disputing the fact that Iran’s economy is still limping along and
that, while a huge number of business delegations have visited the country since the November 2015 signing of the JCPOA, the hoped-for levels of foreign investment have not materialised. Nevertheless, Rouhani’s administration has brought inflation down to the single digits from the 30% experienced under Ahmadinejad, ended the recession and driven up crucial oil production levels.
“Rouhani was elected primarily on
the promise of elevating the economic position of Iranians... [but] people are not seeing a huge elevation for Iran in terms of the economy or its place on the international stage,” Ellie Geranmayeh, a senior policy fellow for the Middle East and North Africa programme
at the European Council for Foreign Relations, told Bloomberg on 14 April.
The 2013 victory of Rouhani was aided by the divided field of five conservative opponents. This time around he
faces Raisi, former police chief and Mayor of Tehran Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf – a pragmatic conservative seen by some analysts as very unlikely to pull out in favour of Raisi – former conservative culture minister Mostafa Mirsalim and former pro-reform vice president Mostafa Hashemitaba.
Assessing the field endorsed by the Guardian Council, Dina Esfandiary, a fellow at the Centre for Science and Security Studies at King’s College London, told Bloomberg: “It plays relatively well for Rouhani. Ghalibaf and Raisi are likely to split the conservative vote, whereas on the other hand Rouhani is uniting the moderates; he is the candidate that is bringing them together.”
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