PHOTO: Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei


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Iran’s Supreme Leader has issued his biggest challenge since the mass protests after the disputed 2009 Presidential vote, as the Guardian Council imposed an election ban on the grandson of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini.

Seyed Hassan Khomeini was one of 207 candidates barred by the Council — whose 12 members are named by Ayatollah Khamenei and the judiciary — from standing in February’s ballot for the 88-seat Assembly of Experts, the body which chooses and can nominally remove the Supreme Leader. Only 166 of the 800 applicants were approved, according to Deputy Interior Minister Hossein-Ali Amiri. All 16 female candidates were rejected.

Last week the Council — with 12 members appointed by the Supreme Leader and judiciary — banned 60% of the more than 12,000 candidates for Parliament, including 50 current MPs and 99% of the 3,000 reformist applicants.

Earlier this month, the Council had threatened to disqualify Khomeini because he did not take a written test to establish his religious credentials, a requirement for many candidates for the Assembly. However, the political reason appears to be fear of Khomeini’s support for a “centrist” bloc linked to President Rouhani and former President Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Iran’s hardliners and some conservatives have been warning of a centrist Rouhani-Rafsanjani bloc, allied with reformists, gaining power in February’s elections. MPs, clerics, and military commanders have accused centrists and reformists, including Rafsanjani, of pursuing a foreign-backed “sedition” to undermine the Islamic Republic.

That allegation of “sedition” has drawn in Khomeini, because of the hardline position that the mass protests in 2009, following Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Presidential “victory”, were a foreign-instigated plot for regime change. Khomeini did not directly support the protests, but he was treated with suspicion by Ahmadinejad supporters and other factions. At a ceremony in June 2010 for the anniversary of his grandfather’s death, he was shouted down by hecklers and forced to abandon his speech.

President Rouhani — in the midst of a trip through Europe pursuing business and investment as well as political ties following confirmation of the July 2015 nuclear deal — did not react to the disqualifications.

Rouhani has unsuccessfully tried to check the Council’s banning power. After last week’s purge of Parliamentary candidates, Rouhani — defying the Supreme Leader — said he would pursue the matter to avoid a “one-party state”, with Ministers and the 1st Vice President meeting the Council to remedy the “mistake”.

Other Leading Candidates Rejected

Rouhani and Rafsanjani were both cleared to stand, as was Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi.

However, the Council barred Vice President Majid Ansari, Vice President for Parliamentary Affairs, the cleric Mahmoud Amjad, and Hassan Khomeini’s father-in-law Mohammad Mousavi-Bojnourdi.

Some hardliners were also blocked. They included Reza Taghavi, a leading member of the Council of Friday Prayers Leaders; the Tehran Friday leader Kazem Seddiqi; Mehdi Taeb, the head of Iran’s cyber-warfare” organization; and Morteza Agha Tehrani, the Secretary-General of the Stability Front.

Lawyer Mohsen Esmaili, who also sits on the Guardian Council, was approved — if elected, he would be the first non-cleric in the Assembly’s history. Reformist Rasoul Montajabnia, a member of the National Trust Party, was also accepted.


Rouhani: Better US-Iranian Relations Up to “Hostile” Washington

President Rouhani told a press conference in Rome on Wednesday, “It’s possible that Iran and the United States might have friendly relations. But the key to that is in Washington’s hands, not Tehran’s.”

In the midst of a European trip seeking business and investment as well as political ties, Rouhani said, “I would like to see the Americans set aside their hostility and chose another way, but inside the U.S. there are some problems, there is no unified voice>”

He added that “the Zionist lobby” was “very influential”.

The Supreme Leader has firmly and repeatedly declared that, following implementation of the July 2015 nuclear deal, Iran can have political and economic relations with European nations but not with the US, which he declares is a “devious” and “dishonest” power trying to dominate the Middle East and undermine the Islamic Republic.

Rouhani followed the line on Wednesday, “The Americans know very well that when it comes to important regional issues they cannot achieve anything without Iran’s influence or say.”

The President also claimed Saudi weakness in the region:

It is angry because of its failures. Saudi Arabia has been bombing the impoverished people of Yemen for 10 months and has not achieved anything. It has not had any victory and is hated more than ever by the Yemeni people.