PHOTO: Tehran Friday Prayer leader Kazem Sedighi
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In the escalating political battle within Iran’s regime, the Tehran Friday Prayer leader has accused President Rouhani of assisting the Islamic Republic’s enemies.
The verbal attack was over Rouhani’s attempt to remove the power of the Guardian Council, the 12-person body appointed by the Supreme Leader, to vet and disqualify candidates for elections.
Ayatollah Kazem Sedighi claimed that the President’s actions were assisting the protests that followed the disputed 2009 Presidential election:
After sanctions and agreement, the enemy is trying to infiltrate the country. In the field of politics, they are — just like the events of sedition of 2009 — trying to instigate factionalism, division and suspicion among the people in our country.
Attacks against the Guardian Council and other pillars of the regime will have no other result but the enchantment of the enemies of the regime.
Sedighi also held up the judicial and legislative branches against Rouhani, “The judicial system and the Parliament are…the strongholds of this country. Therefore the attack towards them…only makes the enemy happy. Why should we keep guards and walls open to encroachment by thieves?”
The cleric jabbed, “I hope this year the Government will make the people believe that it is not power-hungry, but is instead in love with service.”
Sedighi’s challenge was even more pointed because it followed an introduction by Rouhani’s senior advisor Mohammad-Baqer Nobakht, who defended the July 14 nuclear agreement and the Government’s economic policy.
The Tabriz Friday Prayer leader, Ayatollah Mohsen Mojtahed Shabestari — with an expansive reading of the Islamic Republic’s Constitution — insisted that the Guardian Council’s powers cannot be altered.
And the prayer leader in Mashhad, Iran’s second city, criticized Rouhani over his foreign policy of “engagement”, including better relations with Western countries.
Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda said this week’s reopening of the British Embassy was “worrisome”, providing “the enemy an opportunity to attack the Islamic Revolution”. He said the Government should “pay attention to the concerns of the people” who were “frightened” by renewed relations with the UK.
The Government used the two-day visit of British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond to highlight the political and economic possibilities of links with Britain and Europe, amid a series of trips by high-level European officials to Tehran.
Rouhani, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, and their allies have also been rallying the support of senior clerics and politicians for their approach ahead of elections for Parliament and the Assembly of Experts in February 2016.
See Iran Analysis: Rouhani-Rafsanjani Bloc Steps Up Its Political Challenge, Ahead of 2016 Elections
Guidelines for Friday Prayers across Iran are set by the Supreme Leader’s office. So far Ayatollah Khamenei has not commented on Rouhani’s challenge to the Guardian Council, although he has warned the President and the Cabinet about being too assertive with engagement, saying that the US is trying to use the nuclear agreement to stir “sedition” inside Iran and to challenge the Islamic Republic in the Middle East.
See Iran Daily, August 27: Supreme Leader Lectures His President
MP: Parliament Review of Nuclear Deal to Last Until Late October
Parliament’s review of the July 14 nuclear deal with the 5+1 Powers will last until mid-October, according to an MP on the commission carrying out the enquiry.
MP Abbas Ali Mansouri Arani said on Saturday that Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and former chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili — a hardliner who ran for President in 2013 — will attend a commission hearing. Iran’s chief technical negotiator, former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, has also been invited.
Mansouri Arani said the Commission will meet three times a week.
Some MPs have demanded a Parliamentary vote on the deal, but the Government has insisted that endorsement is in the hands of the Supreme National Security Council.