Moderate ex-president Hassan Rouhani is gearing for a seat in the council tasked with selecting Iran’s next supreme leader, Amwaj.media has learned. The two-time president (2013-21) was last elected to the Assembly of Experts in 2016 and plans to run for a third term in polls next year, a senior Reformist source asserted. The source also charged that Rouhani will fight for the lone seat of his home province of Semnan as opposed to his current constituency of Tehran.

The moderate politician has been largely sidelined from the political stage after conservatives completed their takeover of all three branches of power in the 2021 presidential elections. Given that conservatives also control the body in charge of vetting hopefuls, there is a possibility that...