NCRI – As on Tuesday, May 7, registration of candidates for the clerical regime’s sham elections begins, the power struggle between ruling factions reaches new heights, especially attacks on Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani and counterattacks have taken on new dimensions.
The Sunday’s (May 5) headline of Ali Khamenei’s Kayhan daily, was allotted to the statement of a member of Iranian regime’s Guardians Council who has said: “If we smell deviation, we would disapprove competency”.
The same editorial, referring to Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, adds: “More important than the age of candidates that ought to be suitable for executive management requirements, it needs to be proven that the person is alive.”
“And much like using birth certificates of the dead for voting which is loathsome and forbidden, similar usage of certificates of those who are politically-ideologically dead is even more loathsome and illegal… the date of death of some of these luminaries should be written as 1986, 1990, 1993 or at the most 1997, 1999 or 2005.”
Mullah Pour Mohammadi, a candidate of Khamenei’s faction, former Minister of the Interior, a judiciary henchman, and among those responsible for the 1988 massacre of political prisoners, said: “The reason I oppose presence of Hashemi Rafsanjani is that with his presence in the election the cycle of power and wealth will be disrupted.” (Asre Iran – 4 May 2013)
On the other hand, after Heydar Moslehi, the intelligence minister and Hossein Shariatmadari, Khamenei’s representative in Kayhan daily, threatened Rafsanjani with “house arrest” and “trial and punishment” on the charge of corrupt on Earth, parliamentarian Ali Motahari, referring to regime’s “critical conditions”, stated: “The current condition of the regime needs an experienced person in political, economic and cultural realms; there is no space for trial and error… words spoken by his honor (the intelligence minister) is illogical.”
He said: “Whether a person preaches sedition or not should be left to people to decide because presently, with what is being said, one can comprehend that even the intelligence minister himself does not mind occurrence of yet another riot.” (Mehr news agency, affiliated with intelligence ministry – 4 May 2013)
Ahmad Tavakoli, another parliamentarian said: “I continue to remain a critic of Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani and the events of the 2009 sedition furthered my criticism. However, the legal duty of intelligence minister is to provide security and peace to the society and he ought to refrain from voicing statements or adopting postures that have any political tendency to them.”
Mullah Hassan Rohani, member of regime’s Assembly of Experts, stated: “I have been representative of the supreme leader in the Supreme National Security Council and I have always been appointed by him to the Expediency Council as well; I have always been beside his eminence… However, I regard Mr. Hashemi as a pillar of revolution and I shall use his experience.”
“Mr. Hashemi was commander of the war and I was his deputy. His honor became Deputy Commander in Chief of Armed Forces and I was his deputy; and I have always worked with him after the revolution. I believe in Hashemi as a capable and thoughtful person in religious and political issues.” (ILNA state news agency – 4 May 2013)
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
May 6, 2013
