Golam Ali Haddad-Adel
In the presidential election of June 14, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei aims to grab the whole pot: He has whipped out a dark horse contestant who is both tame – in strong contrast to the outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – and also family.
DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources name him as former Majlis Speaker Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel, 68, whose daughter is married to the ayatollah’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei. He would be trusted to comply with his boss’s plan to keep the presidential seat warm for Khamenei Junior to claim unopposed in 2017.
The Iranian voter may not approve of the plan to establish a Khamenei dynasty for ruling the country. But the Leader is leaving nothing to chance.
He has placed two faithful henchmen in charge of guaranteeing the desired results at the ballot. They are Heydar Moslehi, Minister of Intelligence since 2009, and Ali Fallahian, a proven undercover expert in eliminating enemies of the regime.
The two frontrunners of last week discovered they had been dropped, our Iranian sources disclose. Senior nuclear negotiator and National Security Council head Saeed Jalili was the favorite, trailed closely by Ali Akbar Velayati, Khamenei’s close adviser, the more experienced of the two in government administration. Now, the supreme leader expects them to muster their fans to bolster Haddad-Adel’s prospects of winning the election.
