PHOTO: Mashhad Friday Prayer Leader, Ayatollah Alamalhoda, “Some people are pleasing the enemy”

The battle over disqualification of thousands of election candidates in Iran continued on Friday, with senior clerics attacking former President Hashemi Rafsanjani.

On Monday, Rafsanjani challenged the 12-member Guardian Council — appointed by the Supreme Leader and the judiciary — which has banned 60% of the candidates for the 290-seat Parliament and 80% of those standing for the 88-member Assembly of Experts. He asked, “Where did you get your qualifications? Who allowed you to judge?”

The Mashhad Prayer Leader, Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda, led the attacks on Rafsanjani on Friday, “Unfortunately, some people inside the country are pleasing the enemy by insulting Guardian Council members and are paving the way for [the enemy’s] influence.”

Alamolhoda said the Guardian Council had received its powers from the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini: “Must we question this qualification?”

Ironically, Khomeini’s grandson Hassan is one of the candidates for the Assembly who has been barred by the Council.

Other Friday Prayer leaders, who received their guidance from the Supreme Leader’s office, also criticized Rafsanjani’s intervention.

Guardian Council: Some Candidates May Be Reinstated

Last month, the Guardian Council disqualified more than 6,000 candidates in Parliamentary elections, including 50 current MPs and 99% of 3,000 reformists.

The Supreme Leader defended the bans, but President Rouhani challenged them as a process leading to a “one-party state”. He ordered consultations with the Guardian Council over the “mistake”.

There were signs in the last 48 hours that the discussions would bring a limited reinstatement of candidates. After Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli expressed “satisfaction” with the review, Council spokesman Nejatollah Ebrahimian told reporters, “My guess is that more than 20 or 25% of the people [who were originally disqualified] have had their qualifications confirmed.”

There was no sign, however, of a reinstatement of banned candidates for the Assembly of Experts, the body which chooses the Supreme Leader. Only 166 of 800 hopefuls were approved by the Council.

The Council said that those who are still banned have a final appeals process before the list of confirmed candidates is sent on February 16 to the Interior Ministry.

The elections are scheduled for February 26.