Why Is Tehran’s Mayor Attacking Rouhani?

By: Sadegh Zibakalam

Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf’s recent insinuations against Hassan Rouhani, and his general policy of non-collaboration with Rouhani's administration from day one, prove that Ghalibaf has not forgotten the historic debates of 2013 presidential elections. During the televised debates, in a counter-response to Ghalibaf’s claims that Rouhani is not a liberal, pro-civil rights figure, Hassan Rouhani reminded of the student protests in 2003, where Ghalibaf, then head of the police forces, had suggested a “pincer attack” on the students.

Besides the deep wound inflicted by those elections, there is one other motivation for Ghalibaf: Like Mohsen Rezaei, he is a permanent candidate of the Principlist camp. Having an eye on the 2017 elections for the next government, the so-called Twelfth Administration, Ghalibaf thinks that refusal to collaborate with Rouhani and directing criticism against the government can turn him into the favorite candidate of the Principlist camp. Tehran’s mayor has turned Hamshahri Daily, official organ of Tehran municipality, into a platform to slam the government. While that is not against the law, one can imagine what would happen if a reverse scenario took place, that is, a Reformist mayor took advantage of the popular newspaper to stage attacks on a Principlist president. Would the president then allow Hamshahri, funded by citizens’ tax and duties, to speak against the elected president?

For Ghalibaf, criticism of the government is a sort of political investment that will pay its dividends in the 2017 presidential election. But I want to remind him of what I said to Mohsen Rezaei when he also criticized Hashemi Rafsanjai and Rouhani: you are wasting your time. The Principlist candidate will be neither Ghalibaf nor Rezaei. If a serious Principlist campaign is going to run for the 2017 elections, its candidate would be either Ahmadinejad or General Qasem Soleymani.

This piece was originally published in the Reformist Arman Daily. Sadegh Zibakalam is a well-known Reformist political analyst.