With the election façade coming to an end in Iran and the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei claiming victory – based on rigging the number of votes in the millions – will the divides amongst the regime’s senior ranks ease?
Amir Mohebian, a politician and theoretician of Khamenei’s faction, claims the election results prove there is no rift amongst the ruling elite and Iran’s populace.
“All the powers, all the dissidents, all the oppositions, all of them continue to present one main argument of rifts amongst the ruling elite and the general public. The more this divide, the more they will be able to make their move. And the more the ruling elite will rely on foreigners to remain in power, as I mentioned. What’s important is the fact that these elections showed there is no such rift in Iran,” he said to Iran’s state-run IRIB TV station on May 21st.
Khamenei himself in his first speech to his regime’s president after the election literally refrained from congratulating him. This may be an indication.
Rouhani also used his first remarks after the election farce to pursue his own interests.
“Yesterday you said no to those who invite us to the past or stopping the status quo,” he said to IRIB TV on May 20th.
With this very sentence Rouhani took a step in the deepening the specified own rift.
Hossein Shariatmadari, editor in chief of Kayhan daily, known as Khamenei’s mouthpiece, made his views heard.
“One can easily reach the conclusion that the vote of Mr. Raisi was at least twice the statistics announced, meaning nearly 30 million. The reason is when he was able to obtain 16 million votes in a very limited time period of 40 days. Certainly if he had Mr. Rouhani’s four-year period, there would literally not be many votes left for his rivals,” he wrote in the Keyhan editorial on May 21st.
In remarks aimed at paving the path for attacks and future confrontations, the state-run Javan daily, associated to the Revolutionary Guards paramilitary Basij, resorted to harsh remarks at Rouhani. He should know nearly half of the voters voted against him, the piece emphasized.
Raisi also raised the stakes, claiming the people will have their demands and accused the Rouhani faction of vote fraud, in an attempt to delegitimize the entire vote count.
“Various ill measures during the elections, and obvious violations prior and during the elections were amongst the dark moments, derailing this process from its legal path. We will follow up in this regard,” Keyhan daily, May 21st.
Mohammad Sadegh Kushaki, another member of Khamenei’s faction, inadvertently admitted to the regime’s fear of the powder keg society and a possible repeat of 2009-like uprisings.
“In 2009 after the election results were announced, those who claimed to be populists revolted against the republic, violated laws and took to the streets instead of resorting to legal protests.
Adopting such methods, which was advanced by field elements of the enemy, including the Mojahedin (PMOI/MEK) and other dissidents to overthrow the establishments. For nine months they plunged the country into tensions and unrest,” he said.
This makes it clear that not only have rifts failed to decrease, in fact steps have been taken to deepen such divides, according to the May 21st “Hemayat” daily editorial.
Future developments will prove this further.
Source » ncr-iran