Only one day after 134 Majlis representatives voted to donate Azad University’s endowment, media outlets affiliated with the administration framed the vote as disobedience to ayatollah Khamenei’s expressed will and unleashed massive attacks against the lawmakers voting in support of the bill. In response, Majlis speaker Ali Larijani, who supported Sunday’s bill, chastised the administration’s supporters in the Majlis and media outlets supporting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for being “vicious, illogical and loudmouths.”

After months of propaganda disseminated by media networks supporting Ahmadinejad against Azad University and its president, Abdollah Jasbi, Majlis lawmakers on Sunday voted for the bill titled, “Support for the Establishment and Strengthening of Non-Governmental Centers and Institutions of Higher Education.”

The new Majlis bill nullified the recent amendments to Azad University’s bylaws, which were passed by the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution under pressure from Ahmadinejad and his supporters, most notably Rahim Pourazghandi.

Administration supporters had hoped to block Azad University from donating its endowment by amending its bylaws through the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution. The move was part of a larger plan to remove Jasbi as the university’s president, eliminate Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Hashemi Rafsanjani from the board of trustees to establish Ahmadinejad’s political control over the organization.

But by passing the Sunday bill lawmakers blocked the administration’s advance, prompting Ahmadinejad to cancel a prescheduled meeting of the heads of the three branches of government on June 20th.

The bloc of lawmakers who support the administration in the Majlis believe that Larijani and the other lawmakers “disobeyed the supreme leader” by overruling one lawmaker’s constitutional objection that the supreme leader’s wishes cannot be put to vote.

Commenting on the passage of the bill, hardline Kayhan daily wrote yesterday, “According to the precedent emphasized by the Imam and approved by the supreme leader, if an issue is resolved by the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution, the Majlis is not authorized to revisit that issue.”

Javan website affiliated with the administration, also wrote, “Is it is even possible to put the supreme leader’s expressed wish to vote by lawmakers?”

According to Rajanews, the hardliner backlash to the Majlis bill has been so strong that several lawmakers who initially supported Sunday’s bill have retracted their support.

However, responding to the media blitz against him and other lawmakers, Majlis speaker Ali Larijani said, “If someone in the loudmouth media networks speaks with viciousness about the Majlis’ role, it does not follow that his arguments are logical.”  

Larijani accused the hardliners of being “beholden to one branch,” noting, “If someone insults the legislative branch, that person has insulted the people. But perhaps some people are so beholden to one branch that they cannot tolerate seeing another branch.”