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Excerpt from warontherocks.com
Iran’s “election circus” — as it is known in Farsi — is in full swing with a total of six candidates being approved by the supreme leader-controlled vetting body, the Guardian Council. These six have not held back in backstabbing each other, and the knives will be on full display in the coming weeks.
Indeed, this circus is being tacitly encouraged by the regime in order to give the illusion of political competition in their authoritarian system. But behind the scenes, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has already laid out his expectations. And of the six candidates, only two have the characteristics and relationships that meet Khamenei’s criteria: Saeed Jalili and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
