A Trojan Horse From The UK?
Hessam Emami
While the countdown to Iran’s election has already begun, campaigns are becoming more and more controversial. Once concerns over foreign infiltration add up to the already standoffish political atmosphere in Iran, a war of words is the least to expect.
It was early on Wednesday, when Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei once again warned against enemy infiltration as well as plots to orchestrate the upcoming twin polls from overseas.
In a customarily orchestrated gesture, the Principlists are using the Supreme Leader’s remarks as a pretext to attenuate the chances of their rival moderate and pro-reform fronts. Infuriated over a campaign to promote what is dubbed as ‘negative votes’ to block three conservative nominees from the Assembly of Experts, they are calling it a move coordinated from abroad. Reformists now more overtly backed by former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani have urged voters to ballot for their full sixteen-man Tehran list to obstruct Ayatollahs Jannati, Yazdi and Mesbah from being elected to the Assembly of Experts in pursuit of a tagline ‘to block hardliners and radicals’.
Conservative newspaper Vatane Emrooz calls ‘the revelation of a UK-US operation to campaign for a west-inclined list of Assembly of Experts contenders’ a most obvious manifestation of western infiltration. The paper’s cover story yesterday targeted Rafsanjani and the so-called seditionists, calling the campaign a bid to engineer the election in favor of Rafsanjani. “In fact, Rafsanjani, who sacrificed Hassan Khomeini to start the game, is now seeking to block great scholars from the Assembly of Experts; scholars whose main characteristic is being revolutionary. Though the conduct is a political game to obtain power, it is clearly in contrast with the nature of the Assembly of Experts and indicates that with his authoritarian intentions, Rafsanjani wishes to change the nature of the Assembly from within,” reads the article.
The publication of an article on BBC’s Persian service has now turned into trouble for the already suppressed reformist camp. Vatane Emrooz quotes from the article, penned by Hossein Bastani:
“Rafsanjani-Rouhani voters outnumber Yazdi-Jannati-Mesbah by half a million. Thus, if the supporters of the incumbent President vote in a coordinated way to the rivals of Messrs. Yazdi, Jannati and Mesbah, they could easily end up ranking below 17th in Tehran. It should be noted that on the other side, a definitive majority of the voters will ballot for Messrs. Yazdi, Jannati and Mesbah along other Principlists. This is nothing important in a normal situation, but providing that a large proportion of the opposing front’s balloters choose to eliminate the three by voting for their rivals, it would help their elimination through increased rival ballots. Put simply, each Principlist who jots down names other than those three on his own ballot is contributing, unintentionally, to their elimination from the final list of Tehran’s elects.”
The controversial piece has prompted exaggerated interpretations along harsh responses from among conservatives, pressing rival reformist to eat humble pie and renounce what Principlists are calling foreign support. In an article published on Fars News Agency, Reza Seraj makes the whole report sound like an enormous secret project. “This fatal scenario includes four phases of polarizing the election and public opinion, engineering and managing the public opinion in the election, illegitimizing the election to create a legislative void in the country, and finally insinuating insecurity inside Iran,” he writes drawing closely upon recent remarks made by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
He urges Mr. Rafsanjani to renounce support from the UK and the US. He also proposes the motto “yes to Iranian vote, British vote never!” in the election. Seraj is not alone in his warning against a foreign plot. In fact, many Iranian officials have joined concerted efforts to counter it, if any.
Ahmad Khatami, a current member of the Assembly of Experts and Tehran Friday prayers leader, said in a gathering of people in Kerman on Friday the ‘Global Arrogance’ seeks to send secret agents into decision-making centers. “Is it not interference that UK media introduce a list, saying who to vote and who not to vote for?” he asked as he rapped efforts by the US, the UK and the Zionist regime to discourage people against voting for Jannati, Yazdi and Mesbah in Tehran. “It is none of your business,” he was quoted as saying by Asre Iran.
Friday prayers in different cities also saw similar examples of such remarks galore. In Tehran, Hojjatoleslam Kazem Seddiqi indirectly referred to BBC Persian and its assumedly biased coverage of the elections, including the controversial article on what pattern of voting would stop high-profile hardliners from entering the Assembly of Experts. “This year, they have become kind and caring towards us and call for everyone to come to the polls. But they are also undermining bases [of the establishment] including the Guardian Council.”
In Shiraz, Aboufazel Razavi warned about the danger of “infiltration by the enemies”. “Even foreign radio channels encourage people to support them. We should be suspicious about that,” he said.
The Friday prayers’ sermonizer of Semnan in northeastern Iran, Ahmad Panahi, also warned about “infiltration” in the Assembly of Experts. “We should choose candidates whose loyalty to the leader we are sure about. If someone is efficient, but is intellectually susceptible to ‘sedition’, he will not be useful.”
“American and Western theorists believe that if they send their agents inside Iran’s decision-making centers they can contain Iran” said Mohammad-Mahdi Hosseini Hamedani, leader of the prayers in Karaj, west of Tehran.
Iran’s Chief of Staff, Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, has also called those who fail to renounce support from the UK and the US as offenders and urged foreign policy officials to deal with the matter.
However, all these warnings, indictments and criticisms have met a single but firm response from the reformist camp. Mohammadreza Aref, a well-known politician and the chairman of a reformist electoral policy-making council, says BBC’s opinions have never been considered as truth by his front. “They do this to create sedition and discord,” he said in response to a question on why foreign media are backing the reformists. “To question some pious, revolutionary and proactive figures but some are already considering it a religious duty to foment over such efforts,” he added.