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Ahmadinejad's spiritual mentor seeks post in elections
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is "very ill," and thus elections being held in Iran on Friday to choose a new "Assembly of Experts" - the forum that will in turn select Khamenei's successor - are immensely important, Uri Lubrani, an adviser to the minister of defense and former Israeli ambassador to the Shah's Iran, said on Wednesday. Lubrani told The Jerusalem Post that Khamenei, 67, only the second supreme leader after Ayatollah Khomeini, is suffering from cancer and other ailments and would soon disappear from the scene. He added that it was "not impossible" that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's spiritual mentor, Ayatollah Mohammad Mesbah-Yazdi, would emerge from Friday's vote as the dominant figure in the Assembly of Experts, and thus in prime position to either succeed Khamenei himself or appoint a successor. But Lubrani stressed dryly that "there are no Gallup polls" or reliable information on which to base any election predictions. Posted by: Fred 2006-12-14 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=174995 |