IRAN: Well-informed Larijani congratulated Mousavi on election day, report says
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Observers have for weeks heard various theories that purport to prove that Iran’s June 12 presidential elections were rigged. They have come from Western think tanks, mathematicians and, of course, supporters of opposition figurehead Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who ran and lost against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
But the latest tantalizing tidbit, from the camp of Ahmadinejad, comes from the website Rajanews.com, which is run by a strident backer of the president, lawmaker Fatemeh Rajabi.
In paragraphs tucked into the end of an article posted Monday, the website may have inadvertently published information damning to its own president while trying to smear the speaker of parliament, a conservative rival of Ahmadinejad.
According to an anonymous member of parliament quoted in the article, which has been extensively reprinted, Iran’s well-connected parliament Speaker Ali Larijani telephoned Mousavi the evening of the election to congratulate him on his victory.
How did he know to congratulate Mousavi?
Because, Rajanews reports, he had ‘access to firsthand and classified information and news’ that he should not have disclosed.
Here’s an excerpt from the piece:
What he did on the afternoon of the Election Day by calling Mousavi and congratulating him on the finalization of his presidency cannot be overlooked. As the head of a branch of power, he is considered to have access to firsthand and classified information and news. When he congratulated Mousvai at a time when voting hours had not even ended yet, it made him delusional and encouraged him to take the seditious and provocative positions and behaviours which disturbed people’s security and calm and significantly harmed the might and honor of the system.
The article also attempts to cast doubt on doctoral degree of Larijani, who was by all accounts a model student and accomplished scholar who has published books on Western philosophy.
Ahmadinejad is embroiled in a huge fight with Larijani and much of the rest of the parliament over the composition of his Cabinet.
-- Borzou Daragahi in Beirut