Ex-president warns against military intervention in Iran elections

Feb 15, 2008, 10:37 GMT

Tehran - Iran's former president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani on Friday warned against military intervention in next month's parliamentary elections.

'It is one of the main principles of the Islamic Republic system that the military should not interfere in any elections. There is however a cycle which cannot be considered as natural and which could cause major damages to the pillars of our system,' Rafsanjani said at the Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran.

The commander of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), General Mohammad-Ali Jafari, caused some controversy last week after he not only called on his forces to vote for the conservatives but also termed it their 'divine duty.'

The IRGC is widely considered a fierce supporter of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The move was even criticized by Hassan Khomeini who said that his grandfather - the late supreme leader of the 1979 Islamic revolution, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini - was openly opposed to any military intervention in politics.

'What we need now is preparing grounds for allowing all those with fidelity to the Islamic Republic to run in the elections,' Rafsanjani said.

'This also includes different (from the government) political trends,' he added.

A special committee of the interior ministry had reportedly disqualified more than 2,000 candidates for the March 14 elections, including a large number of reformists.

The Guardian Council however, which is constitutionally the main body responsible for monitoring the ideological qualification of candidates for parliamentary and presidential elections, has reportedly revised some the disqualifications.

Reformists close to Rafsanjani and former president Mohammad Khatami still say that the revisions have not cleared their candidates and that there would still be no fair and equal atmosphere for a healthy competition.

The reformists had formed a coalition, led by Rafsanjani and Khatami, to run in the elections against factions supporting Ahmadinejad.

But even candidates of the conservative camp are not regarded by insiders as being fully on the president's side, especially as top candidate Ali Larijani, Iran's former chief nuclear negotiator, has openly admitted to grave differences with Ahmadinejad over his nuclear and economic policies.

Iran's serious economic problems have led to astronomical inflation and some of the conservatives previously backing Ahmadinejad are gradually distancing themselves from the president for endangering their re-election.

There is still a possibility that the election race would include the two moderate-reformist and conservative camps in addition to a a separate pro-Ahmadinejad wing.