PHOTO: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani

Refusing to back down in regime in-fighting over February’s Parliamentary elections, President Rouhani repeated on Friday that candidates should not be disqualified by Iran’s Guardian Council.

Since the summer, Rouhani has questioned the Council’s power to vet candidates. Earlier this week, he repeated, “The Constitution views the Guardian Council as an observer. We also recognize it as an observer.”

The head of judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, hit back the next day, asserting that “some are trying to pressure the Guardian Council to accept their candidates” for Parliament and the Assembly of Experts, the body that chooses the Supreme Leader.

See Iran Daily, December 8: Rouhani Draws His Lines for Elections
Iran Daily, December 9: Head of Judiciary Challenges President Rouhani Over Elections

Speaking after a Cabinet meeting on Friday, Rouhani said February’s elections must be “legal, healthy, and lively” so “each Parliament [can] be stronger than the previous Parliament.”

The President then put out the challenge to hardline opponents and the Guardian Council: “All those interested in serving the people must be represented in the elections.”

Earlier in the day, Tehran Friday Prayer leader Ayatollah Sedighi intervened in the dispute, linking Rouhani’s position to the mass protests after the disputed 2009 Presidential election:

It is unfortunate that our executive officials would create the ground work for these individuals to once again make the people concerned and that there is another plan in play.

Officials should not make the people pessimistic about about themselves.

Sedighi also put out a warning about the elections for the Assembly of Experts, “[It] is no place for sedition.”

Conservatives and hardliners have controlled Parliament for more than a decade, and they pushed out Rouhani’s ally, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, from his leadership of the Assembly of Experts in 2011.

However, Rouhani, Rafsanjani, and their allies are hoping to capitalize on the President’s surprise victory in 2013 — which came after the Guardian Council disqualified Rafsanjani’s candidacy — through the development of a bloc of candidates. The group may also ally with reformists and with figures such as Ayatollah Khomeini’s grandson Hassan, who said this week that he will enter politics and stand for the Assembly.

(hat tip to Iran Tracker for translation)