The news of a meeting between Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mohammad Khatami and Mehdi Karoubi, which signals the possibility of a broad reformist coalition emerging ahead of the upcoming Majlis elections, has sparked reactions within the conservative camp. Ahmad Tavakkoli, a conservative Majlis deputy and the Director of Majles’s Center for Strategic Studies, has said that the reformist movement is “taking cover” behind the prominent three clerics.

These three clerics each represent a different political faction in Iran’s complex network of power relations. As such, their taking part in forming a broad coalition will enhance the chances of the reformist forces in the upcoming Majlis elections, while also contributing to the movement’s resilience in face of the increasing conservative hegemony over Iran’s power centers.

Tavakkoli further claimed that certain “unprincipled” reformist publications have begun operating ahead of the Majlis elections, thus signaling the government’s plan to restrict and suppress opposition media outlets under the guise of protecting revolutionary values. Just as the reformist daily “E’temad” criticized the government’s decision to arrest fifteen British sailors and warned about the negative impact of such actions on Iran’s tourism industry, the hardliner “Keyhan” published a harsh attack on Mehdi Karoubi. Meanwhile, a number of conservative websites republished a letter that Ahmadinejad administration’s spokesperson, Gholamhossein Elham, had written to Tehran’s prosecutor general eight months ago. In that letter, Elham had asked the judiciary to ban publications that criticized the government’s performance.

Reacting to the news of the meeting between Hashemi Rafsanjani, Khatami and Karoubi, Seyyed Kamal Sajjadi, the spokesperson for the Followers of the Path of the Imam and Leadership [affiliated with the conservatives], announced that a meeting would soon take place between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Habibollah Asgaroladi and Mohammad Reza Bahonar, two prominent figures belonging to the Islamic Coalition Society. While refraining from releasing any information about the details of that meeting, Sajjadi said, “My expert view is that, through such meetings, the conservatives are trying to form a strong coalition ahead of the eight Majlis elections. That is the reason behind this meeting.”

Sajjadi claimed that the conservatives were trying to avoid a defeat similar to the one they experienced in the elections for the Assembly of Experts.

Meanwhile, the secretary-general of the left-leaning, reformist Sazemane Mojahedin Engelab-e Islami (Islamic Revolution’s Mujahedin Organization), Mohammad Salamti, told Aftab News Agency that the reformists preferred to form a broad coalition mainly because of their positive experience in the third city council elections last year. “Given the positive outcome of the city council elections,” said Salamati, “it is necessary for the reformists to preserve their unity, harmony and cooperation, which can be made possible through such gatherings. If, like in the third city council elections, the reformists form a coalition in the eight Majlis elections, their victory will be much larger than it was in the previous elections, because people have already experienced the taste of the new administration.”