Janati Warns of Moderates’ Takeover of Assembly of Experts and Majlis

Ahmad Janati, the powerful chairman of the Guardian Council, charged with supervising the elections, on Sunday warned that certain groups, presumably the moderates and reformists were after “capturing” the Assembly of Experts and the Majlis after succeeding in capturing the presidency.

“These days those who just captured the first bastion, are after capturing the Assembly of Experts, and later the Majlis, to implement their corrupt goals,” Janati said. (IRNA, 30 March)

By the first bastion, Janati was referring to the presidency which was “captured” by Hassan Rouhani who represented the moderate/reformist bloc in the 2013 presidential election.

“The election for the Assembly of Experts is very much tied to the foundation of the Islamic Republic… They (moderates/reformists) have dangerous plans. They now want to capture the Assembly of Experts because that's the only institution that can choose/change the (supreme) leader,” Jannati added. “They have lots of money and some are in the center of power today.”(IRNA, 30 March)

Here Janati was clearly referring to Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, the de facto leader of the moderate/reformist bloc.

Janati’s fears are clear: the moderates led by Rafsanjani and supported by the reformists will try to field numerous candidates in the next Assembly of Experts elections to win an outright majority, a first in the Islamic Republic. The Assembly has always been controlled by the right. By controlling the Assembly, the moderates will position themselves in par with Ayatollah Khamenei and his supporters, and politically will elevate the power of Rafsanjani as Khamenei’s co-equal. 

The Assembly last held its election in December 2006 for an eight-year term. The new elections are due in December 2014. The hard right is fearful that if a comprehensive nuclear agreement is reached by July, the moderates will parlay that success into a victory in the Assembly elections.

Janati was also fearful that if the moderate/reformist bloc wins the Assembly, they will position themselves to win the next Majlis elections as well. Those elections will be held in March 2016. By controlling the presidency, the Assembly of Experts and the Majlis, the moderate/reformist block would then be the actual governing body of the country for the first time in the history of the Islamic Republic.

File Photo: Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Mahdavi-Kani (C, top table) gives the opening speech during  Assembly of Experts' biannual meeting in Tehran, 6 March 2012. (Reuters)

Janati Asks the Public to Buy Less Fruit, Sweets and Syrups

Ayatollah Ahmad Janati, chairman of the powerful Guardian Council, and today's Tehran Friday Prayer Imam said in his sermons today that the rapid rise in prices is “a transient and periodic issue.” He said the rising prices were a wartime development like in the period of Iran-Iraq war. Janati asked the public to buy less.

“If we save, a major part of the problem will be resolved. Why idly spend on a variety of fruit, sweets and syrups for parties? Who says it has to be this way?" Janati said.

"Some have unfortunately begun stockpiling food, causing shortages. This is nothing short of a sin. When sugar prices go up, you should become more frugal in the use of it," he added. (Mehr/ISNA)

Photo Credit: Ayatollah Ahmad Janati delivering sermons at Friday Prayer in Tehran. 4 August 2012. Ra’ouf Mohseni/Mehr News Agency

Pro-Government Demonstrations in Tehran

Thousands of pro-government today demonstrators staged a rally at Friday Prayer in Tehran calling for execution of opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karrubi. The Friday Imam, the ultra-conservative Ahmad Janati, who also heads the powerful Guardian Council, said in his sermons that the opposition leaders are practically “dead and executed.”

"Their [Mousavi and Karrubi’s] communications with people should be completely cut. They should not be able to receive and send messages. Their phone lines and Internet should be cut. They should be prisoners in their homes," Jannati added.

Photo: IRNA. Tehran, 18 February 2011

Rafsanjani 1 – Ahmadinejad 0; Two Matches Left

The Assembly of Experts in Session. Tehran, 4 September 2007. (Mehr News)

Former president Hashemi Rafsanjani was chosen to head the powerful and secretive clerical body that has responsibility over the country's supreme leader. Rafsanjani received 41 votes to become the new speaker of the assembly of experts. His opponent received 34 votes. The assembly has 85 current members. Ten ayatollahs must have been either absent or not participating in the vote. The assembly of experts chooses the supreme leader and theoretically supervises his work and can remove him from power.

The elections season began early in Iran. Ayatollah Meshkini who headed the all-powerful and secretive Assembly of Experts throughout the history of the Islamic Republic passed away in July and the ruling senior clerics were forced to make an unscheduled selection between the main warring factions in today’s Iran: moderate and reformist in one camp and the radical fundamentalists in another.

The traditional conservatives, the third camp once enjoying unlimited power in the country, but nowadays reduced to a club of aging, albeit influential, ayatollahs had to act as the kingmakers. The Assembly of Experts’ members are senior clerics with an average age higher than the number of ayatollahs eligible to vote in the Assembly: 85. They were faced with a real selection: Hashemi Rafsanjani, the maverick survivor of the Iranian politics, who these days has become a champion of the moderates and the reformists, and Jenatti, thrown into the ring at the eleventh hour after the radical fundamentalists realized that their original candidate, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, the spiritual guru of President Ahmadinejad, would not get the support of the assembly.

41 of the ayatollahs supported Rafsanjani, 35 supported Jenatti. In the larger scheme of things, the result was immediately translated to a victory for the moderates and reformists, headed by Rafsanjani, and a defeat for radical fundamentalists headed by Ahmadinejad: Rafsanjani 1 – Ahmadinejad 0. Two important matches, however, are yet to be played: the March 2008 parliamentary elections and the May 2009 presidential elections.

The two camps will be at war contesting both. The Assembly of Experts victory should not be generalized as a sure sign of victory for the moderates in those upcoming elections. The assembly was loaded with ayatollahs whose very secure positions in the Iranian society combined with their very advanced age scares them of the politics of the radical fundamentalists constantly after creating tensions, conflicts and wars. These ayatollahs want to be left alone to run their own beits, collect millions of dollars every year from the Shia fateful and the Islamic Republic institutions, and they are in no mood to rock the boat.

The general population voting in the two upcoming elections is different. Iran’s growing isolation in the world arena and the worsening economic situation, partly caused by the country’s isolation, should bode well for the opposition and should change the composition of the Majlis and the occupant of the Marmar Palace, formerly the shah’s and now the seat of the Iranian presidency. The government and its radical supporters, however, control the cash flow from the considerable rise in the country’s oil exports. Their free-wheeling spending might make a 20% inflation rate even worst, but might still buy lots of votes.

The struggle for the control of Iran’s government in the next twenty months has just begun.

Rafsanjani is Victor; Infighting Heats Up!

Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani today was chosen by the 86 senior cleric members of the Assembly of Experts to head the powerful and secretive body.

Rafsanjani, 73, replaces Ali Mehkini who passed away in July. He defeated Ayatollah Ahmad Janatti, the candidate favored by radical fundamentalists.

The fundamentalists originally wanted to have Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi to replace Meshkini. In anticipation of Rafsanjani’s candidacy, they launched an all-out attack on his character in the past couple of weeks. The latest was accusations that Rafsanjani had made up a quote by the late Ayatollah Khomeini to justify his moderate stand on relations with the US. Just in the past few days, they settled on Janatti as having a better chance to stop Rafsanjani. The final tally in today’s selection was kept secret.

At the end the majority of traditionally conservative ayatollahs who make up the bulk of the membership in the assembly sided with Rafsanjani. The fundamentalists’ radical foreign policies which has brought the country to the verge of an armed conflict do not bode well with the conservative clerics who do not wish their secure positions at old age be threatened by conflicts and wars.

The defeat by the fundamentalists today, however, is not the end of the infighting over the course Iran needs to follow during these very sensitive times. The battle for Majlis, with its elections coming up in March, is taking shape.

President Ahmadinejad is already accusing eight to ten of his opponents in the moderate and reformist camp as traitors who have given away Iran’s nuclear secrets to the foreigners. Even with the Machiavellian state of political affairs prevalent in the Islamic Republic, this is considered crossing of a red line, probably beyond repair.

Ayatollah Jannati Will Monitor Elections for Majlis

Iran’s Guardian Council today appointed ultra-hardliner Ayatollah Ahmad Janati to head a five-person panel to monitor the Majlis elections; scheduled for 18 March. The other four members of the team - Larijani, Kaabi, Alizadeh and Kadkhodaie, also belong to the radical fundamentalist faction.

The news was seen as bad omen for all moderate and reformist candidates whose eligibility to run for the parliament need to be approved by the panel. Jannati’s panel is feared to disqualify many of the moderates and the reformists.