IRAN: Well-informed Larijani congratulated Mousavi on election day, report says

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

Photo: Ali Larijani during a conference in Munich, Germany, earlier this year. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Comments

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[Hamid]

Hi

May I ask why you haven't published the very long comment I posted to counter the claims of the user hass? It was an explanation for why the regime has acted the way it has, and I am feeling a bit unsettled about why you wouldn't publish it.

Best,
H

[ronmossad]

Unfortunately - in this crisis no matter who wins Iran, democracy and freedom loses...

http://ronmossad.blogspot.com/2009/08/in-endit-doesnt-even-matter.html

Mousavi and Ahmedinejad are cut from the same radical, Islamist cloth.

[amir]

in this comment I'll try to answer the comment that hass made.
first of all sorry for my bad english.
the great difference between Ahmadinejad and Musavi is that Ahmadinejad is a rightist(in Iran it's called fundamentalist) and has strong supporters among right wing politicians(the strongest is supreme leader Khamenei ) but Musavi is a leftist(in iran it's called reformist). And since 1980s and Ayatollah Khomeini era there was a conflict between right and left in the regime. when Khamenei was president he had significant struggles with Mussavi and he didn't want to present him to parliament as prim minister for the second time but Khomeini made him to do this.so it makes sense he prefers Ahmadinejad to Musavi for presidency.
it's ridiculous to say there was no difference between
Gorbachev and Stalin so it is about Ahmadinejad and Musavi. Ahmadinejad's believes in ideas of the most fundamentalist today shia thinker : Mesbah Yazdi.(for example this man believes that muslims can take non-muslims as slaves in war). but Musavi is rooted intellectual muslim thinkers.

[1 4th Irani]

"Mousavi was a former prime minister and regime-insider. He was specifically vetted and pre-cleared by the regime to run for office. ANd yet we're supposed to think that his alleged election victory presented such a huge threat to the very same regime, that they had to resort to massive election fraud to keep him out of office? Rubbish."

You couldn't have said it better hass. Honestly, Iranians are not stupid to vote in a man like mousavi who was running on anti-ahmadinejad slogans and presented no clear program whatsoever in case he would become president. He was refuted by the same tehran bank he used as a source to prove his exaggeration of inflation percentage during the famous debate. Now don't get me wrong, as an athiest, I'am no fan Ahmadi's pointless and damaging statements when talking about Israel, nor am I a fan of of his old-school revolutionary camp. But if I was an average (like the majority of Iranians living in Iran) who's top concern is the economy, would I vote for a man who came into this campaign using silly slogans and not saying much else or a man who as flawed as his government may be, actually has an economic plan.

I personally wouldn't vote for either candidates because the system is flawed and can not be fixed unless there is real pressure by the parliament and people. the IRI needs an evolution and not a revolution like those ultra secular idiots who push for secularism during economic hard times. How the hell are you going to preach secularism to an average Iranian when all they want is to a decent salary? Is instant secularism going to bring that?

[Ali]

I have a question for hass:

In 2004, the Council of Guardians disqualified 80 SITTING members of the Majles from running for reelection? By your logic, why would the Council do that when these Majles deputies were "specifically vetted and pre-cleared by the regime to run for office" (in your words). I would love to hear your insights.

I've also seen the supposed "debunking" at IranAffairs.com that supporters of the sanctity of the IRI's elections constantly love to link to. I'm especially persuaded by the many citations from PressTV at IranAffairs.com. PressTV being, after all, the IRI's Fair & Balanced network for an English-speaking audience.

[Hamid]

hass

What is rubbish is your level of understanding of Iran affairs. The precise reason Mousavi was vetted to run in the election was that he was deemed incapable of winning the vote as an obscure, uncharismatic candidate virtually unknown to the youth (and disliked by those who were in their formative years when he was prime minister). If you had bothered follow the news, you would have learned that Khatami announced his candidacy against Khamenei's rather stern advice only to have to withdraw his candidacy after he received several threats.
The regime thought Mousavi would be a great filler of a place of an opposition candidate which would maintain the appearance of healthy election while being of no significant threat.

The mistake Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, and Revolutionary Guards made was their failure to understand the depth of dissatisfaction with Ahmadinejad among both the middle class and the lower middle class in Iran. This dissatisfaction boiled over after the first ever live series of debates on Iranian state-run TV where Ahmadinejad's callous lying and attacking other people transgressed all boundaries of Iranian culture and revealed to people Ahmadinejad's almost-psychopathic persona. People saw him deny the existence of (the widely-circulated) video in which he claimed to have had a "halo" when he addressed nations at UN; people saw him show fabricated graphs and charts on economy contradicting his own Central Bank statistics; people saw him lie about the level of unemployment and the inflation (where even uneducated viewers knew well that inflation had risen remarkably); And people saw him do all this with a smirk and with confidence that insulted their intelligence. Ahmadinejad revealed himself to be a complete fraud, and interestingly, he did so thinking he was winning hearts and minds. On the other hand Mousavi did manage to win hearts and minds, as he continued to politely counter Ahmadinejad's lies until in the end he gave a two-minute "revolutionary" speech which spoke to people's hearts. People warmed up to him just enough to rally around him for their own cause.

In the final two weeks of campaigning, against all expectations, Mousavi was able to form a "green movement" which was basically a coalition of the majority of those who wanted to see Ahmadinejad dethroned. As a personal piece of anecdotal evidence I will offer that a large number of people I personally know who have always boycotted the Iranian elections (to avoid legitimizing the half-baked version of the democracy of the regime) reluctantly became voters in this election as a tactical effort to see Ahmadinejad go.

In addition to being taken by complete surprise, the vehement crackdown by Ahmadinejad/Khamenei goons reveals the extent to which the Iranian regime has moved towards amonopoly of power (with the aid of the revolutionary guards) during the first term of Ahmadinejad. This is a fact that was known to many of us (maybe not to this extent) before seeing the aftermath of the election.

Before writing authoritative-sounding comments and misleading those who don't have access to the full story, it is better to educate yourself hass!

[hass]

Sorry but this is third-hand he-said, she-said nonsense. Look, Mousavi was a former prime minister and regime-insider. He was specifically vetted and pre-cleared by the regime to run for office. ANd yet we're supposed to think that his alleged election victory presented such a huge threat to the very same regime, that they had to resort to massive election fraud to keep him out of office? Rubbish.

Incidentally, the statistical studies don't mean much either. The study at the University of Michigan by Mebane relies on Benford's Law, which the Carter Center has concluded that does not apply to electoral results. See IranAffairs.com for more debunking of the fraud allegations.

[Ban]

Yes but that's ALL because Larijani has a personal problem with Ahmadinejad and his having congratulated Moussavi is because he wants to get rid of Ahmadinejad BUT he is a big time supporter of the Velayateh Faghih (Supreme Leader) and he is by no means interested in helping Moussavi's pro-reform group, because ultimately Larijani has HUGE issues with Khatami and Rafsanjani as well. So let us not get too enthusiastic about Larijani's action.