As the Principlists and their media in the Islamic republic strive to co-opt reformers to participate in the upcoming presidential elections next year, and as conflicting reports on the issue appear in the news world, a number of reformers told official media outlets that they would not be participating in the presidential elections next year.
Speaking to a reporter from Fars news agency, a news service associated with the Revolutionary Guards, the secretary general of the Teachers and Scholars Association of the Qom Theological Seminary (Majmae Modaresine Hoze Elmie Ghom) Seyed Hossein Mousavi Tabrizi, responded to a question about whether the reformers would participate in the next presidential election by saying, “No. Reformers would not be participating in the next presidential elections.”
This Association was created after reformist seyed Mohammad Khatami was elected president in 1997 and derived its name from the Teachers Society of the Qom Theological Seminary, which is the organization of the traditional clerics close to the Iranian regime. Seyed Hossein Mousavi Tabrizi, seyed Mohammad Ali Ayazi, Mohammad-Taghi Fazel Meybodi, seyed Abolfazl Mousavian, seyed Serajedin Mousavi, ayatollah Bayat Zanjani, Masoud Adib, Mehdi Amoli, Nazemzadeh GHomi, Sadegh Kamlan, and others are the cleric members of the central council of this grouping close to reformers.
At the same time, Ali Akbar Olia, a member of the Advar alumni and Majlis representative from Yazd in the eight Majlis revealed that the reformers and supporters of Khatami had no specific plans for the upcoming elections. According this former MP, “Doubts, restrictions and the presence of many views in the reform movement have resulted in the absence of regular meetings of the group and clear decisions by reformers.”
He said reformers needed to create the conditions for discussions and consultations among themselves to come up with plans and a specific strategy. “At the moment, they are in a social boycott,” he added.
Olia himself is a reformist from Yazd. Prior to his remarks, some media had reported that Mohammad-Reza Aref, Khatami’s first vice-president during his tenure, had started efforts to participate in the next presidential race and Ali Akbar Olia was named as his choice as his chief of staff.
Prior to that, Mohammad-Reza Tabesh, Khatami sister’s son had publicly said that “The conditions for the reformers to participate in the presidential elections were not there,” and had added that it would be suicidal for them to get into the race. He also said that the reason for their non-participation was not a leadership issue but that the conditions were not there for the group to participate. The conditions that he refers to are the ones that Khatami had outlined earlier and which received wide coverage, which are: “Release of political prisoners, free elections and the implementation of the constitution.”
The conservative media presents the reformists’ lack of a plan for the elections as if they in fact did have a serious plan to participate. This media has named individuals such as Abdollah Nouri, Mohammad-Reza Aref, Kamal Kharazi, Ishagh Jahangiri, Ghodratollah Alikhani, Mosafa Koakbayan, seyed Mohammad Khatami, Mohammad-Reza Tabesh, among others, as the main reformist contenders in the next presidential race.
At the same time, Khatami responded to the rumors about his own candidacy in the next presidential race by stressing, “I am willing to give a notarized signature that I will not be a candidate in the presidential elections.” In his interview, he made it clear that his issues were the release of political prisoners, the opening up of the regime and the passage of the country from the current security atmosphere to free activities of political parties and NGOs, and not participation in the power structure and particularly the presidency.
The reporting that the Principlist media presents regarding the presence of reformers in the next presidential race comes at a time when the influential spokespersons for the three branches of government have announced the conditions for the reformers to participate in the elections to be, “denouncement of the sedition of 2009,” which is translated as the denouncement by reformers of the Green Movement and the challenge they presented to the reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidency in 2009, which they said took place through a fraudulent and engineered elections by the incumbent and his supporters, and ultimately the leader of the regime ayatollah Khamenei.
Hamid-Reza Moghadamfar, the former managing director of Fars news agency and the cultural deputy director of the Revolutionary Guards force also announced the conditions for the participation of reformers in the next elections to be their “break away from and announcement of rejection” Green Movement and their leaders, and also acceptance that what they and their colleagues did was “treason.”
Another prominent hardliner Mohammad Hossein Safar Herandi, who was a minister of Islamic Guidance and is currently an advisor to the commander of the Revolutionary Guards force, also said that if reformers intended to return to the political arena they had to “apologize” to the public for their past deeds.
Iran newspaper, however, which is the official newspaper of the government went further and said that even if the reformers did apologize privately, serious doubts still remain about the ultimate goal of the reformers and has quoted Khatami’s remarks about his goal of releasing political prisoners to suggest that the former president’s goal remains the release of those very individuals who played key roles in the creation of the post-election challenges to the regime, and not their condemnation.
Reformers see the issue in a different context and in the words of Abdollah Nouri, the first minister of interior during Khatami’s first administration, “the absence of a think tank” is the main problem of reformers. According to him, there are some 500 prominent reformers in the country whose views can be taken seriously.
Mahnaz Malekuti
Source: Roozonline