Illness of Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei fuels succession rumours
Recent illness of the supreme leader has fuelled speculation about who will eventually take over and dictate the country's political trajectory
In a closely guarded compound in central Tehran lives a 75-year-old man whose tenure as Iran's supreme leader will expire only on the day he dies.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, one-time revolutionary, has maintained his job-for-life as the politician with ultimate power in Iran for nearly 25 years. But recent news about the his health has revived debate on who will replace him and what it will mean for the future of Iran.
Many wonder why his health was allowed to be discussed in public. Ali Ansari of St Andrews University said Khamenei's pictures in hospital were meant to send a signal that he was fit and healthy.
"It tells us more about the general anxieties they have in the political system, the fact that it's so dependent on him now that people are worried if rumours get out that he is ill, people are going to start manoeuvring," he said.
The son of a religious scholar born at the time of the Pahlavi dynasty, Khamenei rose from a seminary student to become Iran's supreme leader in 1989 following the death of Rouhollah Khomeini, founder of the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Today, in the words of prominent Iranian writer Akbar Ganji, Khamenei is "Iran's head of state, commander in chief and top ideologue. His views are what will ultimately shape Iranian policy".