IRAN: Ahmadinejad aide says president only got '4 million' votes

Iranian opposition figures living abroad have long insisted that the majority of those living in the country were opposed to the Islamic Republic. They've found an unlikely ally in a top aide to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, who made some curious statements to supporters.

According to the hard-line Panjereh weekly, published by the former head of the hard-line Basiji Students Organization, Mashaei said Ahmadinejad received only 4 million votes from his supporters in the June 12 presidential election. In total, Ahmadinejad received about 24 million of the 40 million votes cast in the heavily disputed election. 

"The remaining 20 million [who voted for Ahmadinejad] were in fact critical of the regime and they are more serious than the 13 million" who voted for Mousavi, the weekly quoted Mashaei as saying in its Sunday edition, according to an account on the news website Ayanadenews.com.

"These 13 million voters only questioned the four-year performance of Ahmadinejad," he continued.  "But the 20 million were critical of all the years before Ahmadinejad took office."

His comment suggests that Mashaei believes the vast majority of those who voted for Ahmadinejad rejected the performance of the government from 1981 to 1989, when Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was president, as well as the subsequent 16 years, when Khamenei gave his blessing to the presidencies of Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami.

Mashaei, Ahmadinejad's controversial chief of staff as well as an in-law, has emerged as Ahmadinejad's Billy Carter, former President Carter's beer-guzzling brother whose gaffes caused the president endless grief.

Mashaei enraged conservatives last year when he said Iran was hostile only toward the Israeli government, not its people. He later disavowed his remarks, saying they were only meant as "psychological warfare" against Israel.

Hard-liners demanded that Ahmadinejad dump him as his first vice president, in line to succeed him as president. After defying them for weeks, he named him his chief of staff.

But Mashaei's mystical, messianic fervor has also raised eyebrows among the senior clergy. 

In the same interview with Panjereh, Mashaei said that the day of reckoning when the 12th Shiite Imam, Mahdi, would reappear would soon be upon us:

"For Imam Mahdi to reappear, everyone on the globe is not required to covert to Islam. We have concluded that we cannot use religious literature for the second coming of [Mahdi] because it cannot create any common language. We have to focus on a literature to be understandable to all like justice, kindness, monotheism and the fight against tyranny. We are living in the age of reappearance because we hear the name of Imam Mahdi everywhere."

-- Borzou Daragahi in Beirut

Photo: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, background, and Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei. Credit: Yalda Moayyeri / Associated Press

Comments

[Ernesti]

Mix religion with politics = Tyranny

[Barmak]

Hell0... people... stop and ponder for a moment... What Masha'ie is trying to say in code and obliquely is what Hojjatiyyeh have been saying from the beginning, folks, that the entire IRI system is illegitimate and that "what the people want, and what will hasten the arrival of his Mahdi is a system like the one being pushed forward by "Dr." Ahmadinejad and his non-clerical, populist (read demagogic) discourse (albeit supported behind the scenes by likes of Mesbah); a system that accentuates antagonism, brings about chaos and bloodshed, etc...

This is all moving towards nothing but a bloody bloody purge, and a bloodier response by all the differing factions in Iran.... Iran's hardest days may yet be in front of her....The Hojjatiyyeh-ists have nothing to lose from a last deadly, bloody attempt at a total power grab... what will be interesting will be how the other parts of the system, and how the rank and file as well as the commanders of the IRGC, Basij, and Army will reply.

That's my take at least. Very interesting nevertheless...The rot in the system is rising to the seven high heavens...

[Barmak]

In Scrappy Doo's famous voice: "HUH?!"

(Of course, I jest, but now the world sees what apocalyptic messianic-types have truly overtaken the helm in Iran)

[H]

The article is a bit confusing. The intrepretation of Mashaei's interview could go in any direction. The 20 million voter could also meant to be against the previous reformist system of Khatami, one could say.

At the same time one could interpret this as a confirmation of fraud; since the supporters (Bassij Militia etc) were counted as 4 millions only, therefore its another proof that an additional 20 millions votes is simply unthinkable to have voted for Ahmadinejad.

I think the most interesting part of this article is though the last part about the need for focusing on secularism values instead of religious values to achieve the promised messianic era of a better life. This are internal fights between conservatives. Irans regime is not only splitting between reformists and hardliner, but even the hardliners are splitting into two.

Very soon there wont be any unity, the fall is very near. After the fall Iran could indeed be the proof of the first functioning democratic country in the middle east.
The article has missed pointing out this sensitive observations...

[Omid]

Actually, "Hadi Sedaghat," what Mashai is really saying is that 33 million out of 40 million voters are "against the system," so quit trying to spin for Ahmadinejad.

[hadi sedaghat]

Your article title is misleading. The body tells a different story. According to your article, Ahmadinejad received 4 million votes from supporters and 20 million from those opposed to the regime/Mousavi. It does not say that Ahmadinejad 'only got four million votes' as the title claims. Shame on you for sensationalizing this issue. I don't believe that this is a simple mistake. You have consistently fed into the story of election fraud by any and all means at your disposal.

[Shaboon Bimokh]

Mr. Borzou Daragahi you have taken journalism to a lower level than that of FOX News.

[Mohamad]

Mashaei is a stupid liar !!!

[Jigsawnovich]

Fascinating article. I'm especially intrigued by Mashaei arguing that, "a literature ...understandable to all like justice, kindness, monotheism and the fight against tyranny," rather than "religious literature" needs to be used as a means for the day of reckoning when the 12th Shiite Imam, Mahdi, would reappear. Advocating using secular means to a religious end seems...hmmm...innovative? I wonder whether Mashaei simply means to create spin, or whether he is sincere. If he is sincere at all, no wonder Khamenei didn't want Ahmadinejad appointing Mashaei a VP. This summer's crackdown, overseen by Khamenei, has been injust, cruel and tyrannical.