On February 26, Iran will hold two simultaneous elections: one for the Assembly of Experts, and the other for the Majlis, the country’s parliament.

The Majlis has 290 members that are elected to four-year terms. Its main responsibilities are legislation and oversight. The Assembly of Experts is a body of 88 jurists elected to eight-year terms and tasked with the supervision of, and the extremely sensitive issue of electing, Iran’s Supreme Leader.

The powerful ultra-conservative Guardian Council is composed of twelve members. Six are Islamic clerics appointed by the Supreme Leader himself and the other half are jurists elected by the Majlis from a list of candidates nominated by the chief of the judiciary (who is, in turn, nominated by the Supreme Leader). The council has the power to, among other things, vet all candidates for the presidency, parliament and the Assembly of Experts. In practical terms, however, the real power lies with the conservative Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who chairs the Council.

The council disqualified a massive number of moderate and reformist candidates who are now led by Iran’s former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. The council’s aim is to eliminate any chance for moderates to dominate the two assemblies, particularly the Assembly of Experts.

Similar to the US model, relations between the Majlis and the administration can be both cooperative and confrontational. Because moderates currently control the administration, hardliner control of parliament could practically paralyse administration.

It is noteworthy that conservatives — or Principlists as they call themselves — are now divided in two groups. The more moderate group maintains good relations with President Hassan Rouhani and his camp.

Ali Larijani, who chairs the current parliament, is this faction’s notable figure.

As evidenced by the task of the Assembly of Experts, that is, the election of the next leader if Ayatollah Ali Khamenei passes away, the outcome of the assembly’s elections could determine the trajectory of the country for decades.

The outcome-determinative nature of the elections was hinted at by Ahmad Khatami, a leading conservative figure and the cleric who leads Tehran’s Friday prayer.

Khatami once remarked that because Ayatollah Khamenei would grow old “in the next eight years... some are thinking that the fifth [meaning next] Assembly of Experts may have to decide on the next leader.”

And speaking to reporters last December, Rafsanjani said that in these elections “our nation is getting ready for determining their fate for years to come.”

Even Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who is now 76, acknowledged the stakes.

“That day, when the current leader is not in this world, this assembly should choose a leader who holds the key to the movement of this revolution.”

Chief among those who were disqualified was Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

His elimination came as a surprise but a clear sign of muscle-flexing by the Guardian Council. The Guardian Council said Khomeini’s level of religious jurisprudence could not be established.

This position was bizarre, given the most senior seminary clergy in Iran and the most senior scholars in the field had endorsed his religious competence and jurisprudential qualifications.

Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, a Guardian Council member and the current chair of the Assembly of Experts, said that only the clergy jurists of the Guardian Council have the right to approve the jurisprudential qualifications of the candidates. This clearly contradicts the tradition of Islam, where for centuries the senior clergies and grand ayatollahs’ endorsements were necessary and sufficient for such qualification.

The reality behind the decision was that Hassan Khomeini is a moderate too close to Rafsanjani. Hassan Khomeini has presented himself as a modern, charismatic and moderate cleric. He is becoming increasingly popular among the young, middle-class urbanites.

The council was enormously concerned about Hassan Khomeini’s attempt to formally enter Iranian politics, as he potentially could form a powerful faction within the assembly — albeit with the help of Rafsanjani and Rouhani, who both will most likely be elected to the Assembly of Experts.

After entering the assembly, the next step could have been preparing Hassan Khomeini for the giant leap toward being elected as the next leader. So the council wanted to stifle the plan before it even started.

In the upcoming assembly elections, 161 candidates will compete for 88 seats. The candidates are divided into four groups in terms of their political affiliation: conservatives, moderate conservatives, moderates and a group of newcomers whose affiliations are not yet clear.

The composition of the new Assembly of Experts, however, is clear in advance. The conservatives will dominate the assembly. But some points still deserve to be noted.

There will be significant competition in Tehran between the moderates, led by the Rafsanjani-Rouhani duo, and the conservatives. The conservatives will be led by Mohammad Yazdi, current chairman of the assembly, and Ahmad Jannati, head of the Guardian Council.

The moderates hope to beat the conservatives by a significant number of votes and thus send them a clear message as to who possesses the stronger base in the country.

In addition, sources indicate that the moderates/reformists will be adopting a new approach in these elections. It is now apparent that because a large number of their candidates have been disqualified, they may throw their support behind second- and third-tier candidates of the conservative camp across the country.

They seek to prevent radical and influential leaders of the conservatives’ camp, such as Jannati, Yazdi and Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah Yazdi (the radical outspoken cleric) from winning seats in the assembly.

This approach will not change the composition of the assembly, which will otherwise be conservative-dominated. However, it can create a vacuum in the leadership of the conservative faction within the assembly.

This could, over time, result in some members of the bloc realigning their political stance toward the moderates. To that end, Rafsanjani and the supporters of the Rouhani administration have announced a list of the candidates they are endorsing in Tehran, which also includes a number of conservatives.

Moreover, when the occasion arises the moderates may also influence the process of electing the Supreme Leader if they are able to attract one-third of the members. To assume the position of the new leader, one should have the votes of two-third of the members.

By having the votes of 30 members, the moderates can obstruct their rivals’ votes. Some observers in Iran argue that on some occasions, some of the members of the assembly have changed their alignment in the past from one camp to the other. Therefore, nothing is definite until the moment of truth arrives, they contend.

If the formation of such a bloc were to fail, observers in Iran maintain that the conservative, 55-year old current judiciary chief, Sadegh Amoli Larijani, has the highest chance of becoming Iran’s next leader.