The seventh conference by Iran’s Assembly of Experts on Leadership - a body that is constitutionally charged with supervising the conference opens its session tomorrow while the faction supporting the administration in the Majlis, along with several prominent right-wing hardline figures affiliated with the military-security apparatus has intensified its attacks on Hashemi Rafsanjani, the Assembly’s chairman while also stepping up its defense and praise of ayatollah Khomeini’s positions.
In this connection, Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, a radical cleric who staunchly supports Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and who has been silent since the Ashoura Day protests, suddenly appeared in a meeting attended by his “students,” according to websites close to the administration to praise ayatollah Khamenei’s leadership.
In his remarks, without naming Mousavi and Karoubi, Mesbah-Yazdi blasted “leaders of the opposition” and referred to them as “conspirators.”
Mesbah-Yazdi’s recent remarks are covered by hardline media outlets while last week, in an interview with ILNA, Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour criticized the “strong role of non-revolutionary and fringe clerics during the era of the Imam and the Hojjatiyeh Society in suppressing reforms.” Many experts interpreted his remarks as targeting Mesbah-Yazdi.
In another development, sheikh Mohammad Yazdi, vice-chairman of the Assembly of Experts who is another strong supporter of the administration and servative hardliners, met with “members of the public, seminary students, and Basiji students,” according to the Fars news agency, and criticized the “recent positions of certain individuals.”
It must be noted that during the previous Assembly session, ayatollah Dastgheib, the Fars province’s representative at the Assembly of Experts, declared ayatollah Khamenei to be lacking the necessary criteria for leadership. At that time, reports pointed to a heated verbal exchange between him and Mohammad Yazdi at the Assembly, which prompted Hashemi Rafsanjani to leave the meeting.
In the past eight months, Mohammad Yazdi has made several harsh remarks about Hashemi Rafsanjani. In response, Hashemi Rafsanjani told the Expediency Council’s news outlet, “For years, my response to Mr. Yazdi has been to ask for his cure.”
Hashemi Rafsanjani further announced that he would release a written response to Mohammad Yazdi’s statements soon. The threat prompted Ahmad Khatami, another hardline cleric who supports the administration, to contact Hashemi Rafsanjani’s office and ask him not to respond to Yazdi’s remarks.
Nevertheless, “informed sources” immediately revealed that after ayatollah Khomeini’s death, ayatollah Yazdi supported ayatollah Golpaigani, not ayatollah Khamenei, for the post of supreme leader.
Supporters of the Basij approached Hashemi Rafsanjani’s bodyguards on 22 Bahman and chanted slogans against him.
report
February 24, 2010
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