Rafsanjani’s candidacy despite Khamenei’s threats – Power struggle at the top
In the last few days, Khamenei, through various means including through the Minister of Intelligence and Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of Kayhan, described Rafsanjani as Mohareb (in war with God), “corrupt on earth” who deserves to be prosecuted and punished.
Registration of Rahim Mashaie, Ahmadinejad’s preferred candidate, who has been described by Khamenei and his faction as the inspiration of the diversion flow, has grew religious dictatorship’s crack and internal crisis much deeper.
On the other hand, repeated split and fragmentation within Khamenei’s faction indicates the depth of the crisis in the regime of Velayet-e-Faqih (Supreme leadership). Gangs within this faction who had already agreed to nominate one candidate for each gang, failed to overcome their infighting and from each gang, several people registered. For instance, Ghalibaf, the mayor of Tehran, Velayati, former Foreign Minister, and Haddad Adel, whose daughter is Khamenei’s son wife, enrolled separately. In addition, from Khamenei’s faction a number of other people, including Manouchehr Mottaki, Abutorabi, Sadeq Lankarani and Saeed Jalili, nuclear negotiator, have nominated themselves.
Rajavi said:
With Rafsanjani’s candidacy for the mullahs’ presidential elections, the Iranian regime has now undergone a significant change. Khamenei’s centralized and one-sided power that he had achieved after wars of Kuwait (1991), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq and disarmament of the Iranian opposition (2003), in the process of contraction of the religious dictatorship, led to 8 years presidency of Ahmadinejad. Four years ago, Khamenei and Ahmadinejad were able to suppress the Iranian people’s uprising, but Ahmadinejad entered a grueling competition with Khamenei. Now this era has ended and with the entry of Rafsanjani and Rahim Mashaie into the power struggle against Khamenei, the process of the regime’s disintegration and debilitation has intensified unprecedentedly and will accelerate its certain fall. Rafsanjani’s candidacy who ridiculed Khamenei’s slogans of “Economic Epic ” and “Political epic”, is a full length mirror of the crisis of falling of a regime that since 1980, has been fed by four major wars, the first of which was the eight year war with Iraq that Khomeini called it “A Grace of God”.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
May 12, 2013
