Speaking to Adineh Tehran weekly newspaper (affiliated with the Friday Prayer Office), the secretary of the powerful Guardians Council ayatollah Janati recently said “seditionists” (a term Iran’s ruling circles use for the leaders of the Green Movement which contested the 2009 reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidency and those who supported them) could not participate in the June 2013 presidential race. He added, “They should not have any misgiving about this. They have perpetrated the biggest treacherous act against the Islamic state and people, and have inflicted a heavy blow to the country. They showed that they neither believe in the constitution, Islamic rulings, or Islamic ethics nor do they feel bound by them. Today, the connection seditionists have with foreigners and the enemies of the revolution has been fully established. … They burnt mosques and Basij militia bases, trespassed mourners on Ashoora and insulted Imam Khomeini. People view them as criminals and will never accept their return.”
The question that comes to mind after reading Janati’s remarks is this: what is the relationship between the views of this cleric and those whose credentials are accepted to run in the presidential race?
Well known political science university professor Sadegh Zibakalam said this about Janati to Arya website: “Ayatollah Janati has a harsh and radical view of anyone who presents a critical view of the government or the regime and expects everyone to fall within his views; otherwise the person would be in trouble. In fact, in his political realm, there is no such thing as a critic, dissident, dissatisfied and so everyone must prescribe to his views.”
By looking at these comments, one can conclude then that Janati’s views are not the determinant in who is confirmed to run in the presidential race because the record shows that the regime has allowed dissidents who are sincere to the framework of the regime to take part in the presidential elections. I differentiate the standards used for presidential and say Majlis elections, because in the latter the range of candidates and the whole atmosphere is more extensive and divergent requiring a more lenient approach.
In the Majlis elections the authoritative elements of the regime have not succeeded in completely imposing their narrow definitions as we witness the victory and presence of some critic candidates in the last Majlis elections. Furthermore, the supreme leader’s view as expressed in his meeting with the head of the Sate Expediency Council indicates his consent with the presence of reformers in the Majlis elections.
Minister of tourism during Mohammad Khatami’s presidency Ishaq Jahangiri spoke about this with a reporter from Jost o Joo publication belonging to Etemad newspaper. “After the Majlis elections, Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani quoted the supreme leader to have said that the leader favors the presence of reformers and that there was no problem if they got into the Majlis. These remarks were made when reformers were not in a position reorganize themselves. I believe that the regime in general seriously desires reformers to participate in the management of the country,” Jahangiri said.
Majlis deputy Ali Motahari also echoed this view in a letter that he recently sent to the secretary of the Guardians Council. “You have said that reformers should not even think about returning to elections. If you are talking about those whose crimes have been proven in a competent court of law and the court has passed a judgment denying them their social rights, then you are right. Otherwise, there is no legal foundation for this view. Let’s assume that Mr. Mousavi and Mr. Karoubi also become candidates in the next presidential election. Regardless of our personal views about their role in the presidential crisis, there is no legal barrier for them to reject their candidacy because they have not been formally tried in any court and where they have presented their defense. So it is better that we follow the law rather than issue these rulings,” he wrote.
Experience also shows that monopolistic drives do not succeed in being implemented. In this regard, Mehdi Karoubi has quoted that during the campaign for the seventh president a member of the Guardians Council had spoken of rejecting Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s credentials to run in the race which was met with an angry response from the supreme leader who had said how they could reject the prime minister who had been approved by Khomeini. Another example is when the supreme leader intervened in the 2006 presidential race to force the Guardians Council to approve two candidates to run in the race.
Generally, candidates who remain in the presidential race have not been concerned about the views of the Guardians Council or ayatollah Janati because the unwritten law for running in the presidential race is that the candidates have received approval from the supreme leader which the Guardians Council cannot oppose.
In addition, the spokesperson of the Guardians Council Abbasali Kadkhodai speaks of a different approach. Speaking to Mashreq website, he responded to a question on the ban on “seditionists” to participate in elections in these words: "These are after all political perspectives and we should not limit the range of options in the regime so that they can exclude anyone from the revolution or [participation in] the regime. Unless someone drops himself off, which would make it very difficult for him to return. Our effort should be not to reject people on any grounds. So these are political stigmas and some cannot be proved and they are not legal criteria.”
So Mr. Janati’s remarks may be indicative of his age that no longer allows him to access primary sources of information. He seems to get his information from a specific political group. Groups and individuals that are sincere about the country should not be very concerned about such remarks. It appears that the body of the regime (i.e., its highest rulers) desires that the range of participants in the next presidential election not be narrower than that of the earlier ones.
