Ahmadinejad Threatens Rafsanjani

Hamid Ahadi, Rooz Online: a pro-reformist website

While president Ahmadinejad complains about the obstructiveness that goes on against his government, and as Hashemi Rafsanjani’s supporters and the clergy warn of the dangers of excluding the expertise in the nation’s decision-making and policy formulation, Iran’s opposition groups have intensified their activities while expressing greater concern for the future of the country. President Ahmadinejad has not been silent and he too has increased his attacks on the former administrators and decision-makers of the country. READ MORE

A good example followed last Friday. As Hashemi Rafsanjani, the head of the powerful Expediency Council that is mandated to smoothen out differences between the different branches of the Iranian government and at times has forcefully imposed its own will, during his speech at Tehran’s public Friday prayers at Tehran University – a forum through which prominent national leaders express their opinions about the major issues facing the country – called on the leaders of the state to use reason and dialog rather than slogans, president Ahmadinejad was delivering a talk to a group of clerics in which he sharply criticized Rafsanjani, himself a two-time president and Speaker of Parliament, and the pressures he had been subjected to while in the process of selecting his cabinet ministers. Finally, he threatened that he would reveal these obstructive measures to the public if they continued. This is precisely what former president Khatami said six years ago but never materialized it.

While Ahmadinejad’s talks was not the senior clergy and politicians, but for a group of students and young clerics who were there because of their support for conservative cleric ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, who also happens the strongest supporter of the president, it is now clear that not everybody even in the revolutionary circles believe in his words that “if they let the 2nd revolutionary generation will show the first that they are wiser and more effective.”

The following day, conservative Kayhan and Javan newspapers both supported the president. Resalat and Jomhurie Eslami wrote of moderation and the need to utilize the expertise of the country. Jomhurie even went as far as to predict that victory can come if these forces are included in decision and policy making. Resalat, another conservative paper wrote through the words of ayatollah Ostadi, who is a prominent figure on the right in the religious city of Qom, “the role of the clergy is not to advice or confirm the government, but to work for the people.” This is a direct and clear reference to what Mesbah Yazdi has been doing, i.e. supporting Ahmadinejad’s government, something that now displeases some grand ayatollahs.

Groups too are becoming more vocal about these developments. The reformist Jebhe Mosharekat front is reorganizing itself and while the resignation of its leader Reza Khatami who also happens to be the brother of former president Khatami, has been rejected warned that “If the government does not accept accountability and responsibility transparency and justice will not prevail behind the colorful slogans that it airs. Instead, there shall be even more corruption, more censorship, more dishonesty culturally and more restrictions politically regression, more capital drain, greater inflation and unemployment and more crises in our international relations.”

According to him, it is the concern for the current state of affairs by the reformers that brings them back into activism and calls for serious reforms as an immediate and only solution to the existing crises. He goes on to say that despite the many shortcomings of the reformists, they had learned that it was imperative that they improve their organizational structure. Referring to the recent failures of the reformists in the June 2005 presidential elections, he opinioned that “our organization was intensely under organizational pressure from the progressive reformers who did not have the minimum instruments to reach the masses, and instead had plenty of internal and external issues which barred them from attaining their goals.” “There is no doubt” he went on “that if the organizational structure of the reformers’ groups was better and some tactical errors had not taken place, the outcome of the presidential race would have been different. This is now so obvious that one only has to look at the way the hardliners are increasing attacking the civil society and private institutions that include steps to circumvent social and political groups and individuals.”

News has it that former president Khatami has declined to take the leadership of the reformist movement but that they will soon resume their national activities. Cleric Mehdi Karoubi, who made an unsuccessful presidential bid in June of 2005 too is rapidly putting his organizational structure in place and will soon issue its publication and satellite broadcast television channel from December 21st 2005.

What remains unclear is the status of Kargozaran Sazandegi group which is close to Rafsanjani. Their internal talks have not yet produced a consensus on its issues. Former Tehran mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi continues to be its leader attempted to re-enter the political sphere when a few days ago he made a public speech, but because of the criticism from the other leadership personalities led by Mehdi Hashemi, again opted for silence. Mohammad Ali Najafi, another prominent member of the Kargozaran and also a former cabinet minister and the Kargozaran’s presidential candidate recently left Kargozaran, a move that indicated a division within the group some of whose leaders aspire to join the reformist front or while others do not.

It appears that the public policy that Ahmadinejad’s government wishes to pursue the old methods of scandalizing the economic issues of the previous administration. It should be noted that he won his presidential race on the promise of economic reforms. He recently made an inflammatory remark that “nothing remains” of the $70 billion purchases of last year! He has again threatened to publicly reveal the names of individuals who cause economic corruption, something that conservative newspaper Kayhan editorialized as such. “Imagine a corrupt criminal who has been imprisoned for embezzlement of billion dollars and sentenced to return the money to the national treasury and spend a few years in the cooler, but no one knows of the court hearings or the sentencing of the person, while the issue is not covered in the press. Even if no influence is exerted on the case, one can expect the case to go through its due process and the suspect to receive his sentence. Then when in prison for a few months, he will be given some leave that will be repeated throughout his prison term. If one asks the family members of the whereabouts of the person, they will inform him that he is out of the country and will be there for a few years! Or that he has made large investments in some foreign country and so has to be there now. And when his prison term is complete, the criminal will return to his life with the money he had stolen, after finding all kinds of legal loopholes, and also to the same economic and business practices of the past.” Kayhan goes on to question the current practice of not revealing the name of suspects in such high profile cases until sentencing. It is noteworthy that this complaint comes at a time when the hardliners have repeatedly taken prominent reformist personalities to courts and the judiciary and sentenced them to prison terms on any charges possible, or created conditions that practically end their political life. Some of the famous victims of these practices are ayatollah Abdollah Nouri, a one time minister of the Interior, Gholamhossein Karbaschi, a reformist, close ally of Rafsanjani, and form Tehran mayor, Ataollah Mohajerani, a deputy minister, Faezeh Rafsanjani, a popular reformer and daughter of former president Rafsanjani, Mousavi Khoeniha, a progressive cleric, Abbas Abdi, a radical turned reformist journalist and activists and a proponent of open relations with the world, and, Akbar Ganji a journalist writer and human rights activist who has been ardently advocating reforms even from his prison cell.

So as the differences – which were planted during the presidential election days - between the political groups and leaders heighten, Ghoochani who is the editor of Shargh newspaper heralds some good news. According to him these differences provide the opportunity for some political parties without which Iran would be paralyzed. He predicts that the current balance of forces between the state and the political parties will alter the power structure and balance of power and forever end the duality that has existed in Iran for years. Ghoochani says if this process is complete, we will have reason to celebrate the birth of a modern state.

Political observers have noted that since there are some powerful and influential traditional clerics are among the opposition figures this time, the possibility of success for the technocrats and the reformers is greater than ever before.