The Guards’ Rational Engineering of Elections
Two days after a senior Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) official made direct remarks about
this military organization’s plans to control Iran’s upcoming presidential election in June,
ayatollah Khamenei representative in the same force also spoke of the responsibility of
the Guards to “rationally and logically engineer the elections. Khamenei’s representative
in the force cleric Ali Saeedi had earlier also said that the IRGC “was not
indifferent over who became president.” Even though Saeedi’s latest remarks were
refuted by general Ramezan Sharif, the public relations official of the Guards who said
what he meant was “the logical and rational engineering work concerning elections”
meaning “activating the potentials of the force in implementing its legal mission and
responsibilities in the field of elections.”
In a lengthy talk with Iran’s ISNA student news agency, cleric Saeedi described the
posture and plans of the IRGC regarding the upcoming elections while also listing how
the force was going to implement its “responsibility.” In the interview, ayatollah
Khamenei’s representative boasted about the Guards’ interventions in various elections
by saying, “As the person who is the representative of the supreme leader in the Guards
announce that our guardsmen have reason and logic and so we only raise the ideals and
standards.” He then claimed that the Guards never got involved in the content of the
elections and that it only explained the framework and criteria which does not translate
into intervention in election adding that their inherent nature was to “rationally and
logically engineer the elections.”
Saeedi said the claims that the Guards interfered in the elections has no evidence. He said
the force was an institution above political parties and organizations and does not invest
itself in any party or person.
He responded to the complaints of some principlist Majlis representatives such as Ali
Motahari who had accused the IRGC of interfering in the last presidential election in
2009 by saying, “Inside the country too some individuals are pursuing the policy of
Guard mongering. These individuals view the IRGC as an obstacle to their [personal]
ambitions. During (president) Bani-Sadr’s time and the reformist era too this issue
existed. Some attributed the mistakes of a person or parts of the Guards to the whole
IRGC. We do not expect those from within the principlist camp to pursue the mistakes of
others for example extending the mistake of a news agency to the whole organization.”
As a student of conservative cleric Mesbah Yazdi, Saeedi used the words “engineering”
rather than “interference in the elections” and said, “Some do not accept the notion of
‘election engineering’ and claim that the IRGC has actually interfered in elections. That
there are influential individuals among the public who are influential does not impact the
elections. This claim of rigged election too has its roots in the sedition of 2009.”
Saeedi called the IRGC to be the “center” of the regime. In his talk, he added a few more
qualifications needed to be a presidential candidate, to those already expressly defined in
law and the constitution. “Anyone who wishes to be a presidential candidate must have
three characteristics: accept the remarks of the supreme leader as final and not challenge
them; possess management authority; and, possess values.”
Ayatollah Khamenei’s representative also responded to the remarks that Asqar Owladi,
the secretary general of the Jebhe Peyrove Khate Imam va Rahbari (the Alliance of the
Followers of Imam’s and the Leader’s Path) recently made to the effect that Mir-Hossein
Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi were not seditionists – as is the official view of supporters
of supreme leader ayatollah Khamenei - and said, “During the 2009 sedition people’s
position were very clear. Mousavi and Karoubi did not accept the results of the 2009
election and turned the opportunity that had rise for the regime into a threat. They
confronted the regime. How can they not be seditionists? What are some of these
gentlemen saying?”
Mousavi and Karoubi continue to be under house arrest for their questioning of the way
2009 presidential elections were held and their officially announced results, which
brought Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second presidential term to end by June 2013. The
arrest of these two veteran politicians has split the body politic of the Islamic regime with
those ardently supporting ayatollah Khamenei calling them seditionists who have fallen
out of the path of the revolution, while others such as Rafsanjani give credit to some of
their view and call for a different more inclusive approach to the issue. The IRGC along
with Ahmadinejad have been accused of engineering the 2009 election by reformers and
some other senior politicians as well.
Source:
http://www.roozonline.com/english/news3/newsitem/archive/2013/january/10/
article/the-guards-rational-engineering-of-elections.html
Accessed: 15/01/13