Khobregan is an opaque body of 86 senior clerics, directly elected by the Iranian public to choose and supervise the leader. It rarely meets, and yet when Khamenei, 75, is called to his eternal reward the Assembly will pick a successor with last word on most matters of state, including the power to declare war and to make top appointments including the heads of the armed forces and the chief of state media. The leader should be a leading cleric, although not necessarily the pre-eminent one.
Its selection of Yazdi looks like a shift towards the right. His most noted views have been condemning music as haram (forbidden in Islamic law) and calling in 2010 for the house arrest of Rafsanjani for not forcibly condemning street protests after the disputed 2009 presidential election.
Yazdi is far from the most radical of Iran's so-called principle-ists, but he was apparently supported as chairman by Ayatollahs Ahmad Jannati and Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi. Iranian politics is heating up. At 83, Yazdi may not be a likely candidate for leader unless a vacancy occurs within the next few years, but his election as chairman of Khobregan probably reflects determination from the likes of Mesbah-Yazdi, 80, and Jannati, 88, to block Shahroudi. Last year Jannati warned of "a plot" to take over the Assembly, presumably by reformists, pragmatic or even mainstream conservatives.
