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Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad appears to have been arrested and held for questioning for seven
hours this week by order of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Ahmadinejad was quizzed
about his campaign to promote his favored candidate in
the much-anticipated June 14 election of the Islamic Republic’s seventh
president.
I have collated these two
reports, one detailing news of his arrest and questioning and the other shedding
light on Ahmadinejad’s campaign for his chosen successor.
The arrest
By Reza Kahlili, writing
for World Net Daily (WND) under the title “Iran
source: President Ahmadinejad arrested”:
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was
arrested and held for seven hours Monday and warned to keep his mouth shut
about matters detrimental to the Islamic regime before he was released,
according to a source within the Revolutionary Guard’s intelligence unit.
After his visit to Tehran’s 26th
international book fair Monday (April 29), the source said the head of
Ahmadinejad’s security team informed the Iranian president that he had been
asked to appear at the supreme leader’s office for an urgent matter.
On the way to the meeting, contact between
the security team within the president’s convoy was disconnected while three
other cars joined the convoy, instructing the lead car to take a different
direction. Ahmadinejad, instead of being taken to the supreme leader’s office,
was taken to a secret location in one of the buildings belonging to the Foreign
Ministry, which is under the control of the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence
unit.
As soon as Ahmadinejad exited the car, he
and his security team were involved in an altercation with Guards’ members in
which his team was disarmed and communications equipment confiscated.
Ahmadinejad was then forced to enter an office belonging to Hossein Taeb, the
head of the Guards’ intelligence, located underneath the building.
As this was happening, the source said,
hundreds of other Guards’ members from the intelligence unit sought out
Ahmadinejad’s associates throughout Tehran and questioned them on the existence
of documents detrimental to the regime.
Ahmadinejad was questioned for hours in a
meeting with Taeb; Asghar Hejazi, the head of intelligence at the supreme
leader’s office; Mojtaba Khamenei, the supreme leader’s son; and Gholam Hossein
Mohseni Ejei, the attorney general. He was warned to back down from his claims
against regime officials and given an ultimatum. The source added that
Ahmadinejad was released back to his security team at 11:45 p.m. Monday, Tehran
time.
Earlier, the regime’s media outlet Baztab
reported that with just days remaining for the registration of presidential
candidates, Ahmadinejad warned associates that if his hand-picked candidate to
succeed him, a close confidant and a top adviser, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, was
rejected as a candidate, then he would reveal tapes that will show the regime
defrauded the voters in the 2009 presidential election.
One tape reportedly quotes officials as
telling Ahmadinejad in 2009 that they will announce his total winning tally as
24 million votes where the real number was 16 million. In the same tape,
Ahmadinejad insisted that the officials not do that. The Baztab site was immediately taken down by the
regime’s security forces and is still offline.
Millions of Iranians took to the streets
after the 2009 election results were reported, calling Ahmadinejad’s 62 percent
tally of voters a fraud and demanding a free election. Thousands were arrested,
with many tortured and executed. Ahmadinejad’s opponents, Mir Hossein Mousavi
and Mehdi Karroubi, have been under house arrest ever since.
Under the constitution of the Islamic
Republic, the 12-member Guardian Council decides the eligibility of who can run
for office in the country, and anyone with any history of opposing the regime
is barred from participation. The council is made up of six Islamic faqihs (experts in Islamic law)
appointed by the supreme leader and six jurists nominated by the head of the
Judiciary (who is himself appointed by the supreme leader), and then approved
by parliament.
Ahmadinejad had previously warned that he
would release documents not only on high-ranking Guards officers but also on
leading members of parliament and the Justice Department that prove financial
fraud.
The source added that it will be
interesting to see if Ahmadinejad takes the warning or if he creates more
problems with the regime, but one thing is sure: He could end up dead if he
doesn’t.
The public
relations office of the Iranian president subsequently issued a
press release rejecting the existence of such a tape that points to fraud in
the 2009 elections. In its release, it stated that publishing such news, by the
regime’s media Baztab, is only with the intention of creating instability
before the upcoming elections.
The UK DailyMail
reporting on this WND story added that U.S. and British diplomats in
the area are said to be aware of the reports and are viewing them “with
interest.”
“It is potentially of
considerable significance given the on-going internal political struggles as
the election approaches,” one diplomatic source said.
The campaign
By Saeed Kamali Dehghan,
writing for The Guardian of May 1 under the title “Who’s
afraid of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad”:
As the countdown begins for elections that
will usher in Iran's
first new president in eight years, all eyes are still on Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, the unpredictable and mercurial man who looks unlikely
to go quietly.
Shortly after the 14 June poll, he will
have to relinquish his office in Tehran's Pastor street and hand over the keys
to his successor. Given the tight timetable for Iranian elections, it is almost
impossible to guess who that person will be.
With just six weeks to go, registrations
for presidential candidates are only due next week. A number of hopefuls have
already announced plans to run but their candidacies will not be valid until
the powerful Guardian Council vets their competence and loyalty to the Islamic
republic. In 2009, out of 476 registered nominees, only four candidates were
allowed to stand – two of them, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, are under house
arrest for refusing to accept the results and for alleging fraud.
The final list of this year's candidates
is expected on 23 May and a three-week campaign period will follow.
Despite this, Ahmadinejad has embarked on
an extensive schedule of provincial visits in what is suspected to be part of
an election strategy designed to promote his favoured
candidate. On Wednesday, he was visiting Rasht, the capital of
northwestern Gilan province, situated on the coast of the Caspian Sea. At the
weekend, he went to Tabriz in the East Azerbaijan province. Previously, he
visited a number of other provinces, such as Isfahan, Khuzestan and Semnan. He
is not alone; other nominees are following his footsteps.
Under Iranian law, the president cannot
run for a third term but all the signs indicate that the 57-year-old
Ahmadinejad, a relatively young politician in the Iranian hierarchy, has no
plans for retirement. On the contrary, he is accused of
planning a Putin/Medvedev-style reshuffle by grooming his chief of
staff and close confidant, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei.
In the eyes of loyalists to the supreme
leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, today's Ahmadinejad bears no resemblance to the
young revolutionary and later Tehran mayor who rose to become president in
2005. Back then, he quickly became the ayatollah's protégé, enjoying an
unprecedented influence over Iranian politics. Now, Ahmadinejad is at odds with
his erstwhile patrons in the Revolutionary Guards and widely seen as a lame
duck.
Ahmadinejad has fallen foul of the
loyalists because of his
unwavering support for Mashaei, who is accused of leading a deviant
current in the inner circle of the president, loathed for their advocacy of
greater cultural openness and nationalism.
Many are already counting down
Ahmadinejad's dying days in office, believing they are his final days in power.
Others think he still has a chance and, in case Mashaei is disqualified from
running, is issuing challenges to the establishment by threatening
to go out all guns blazing and pulling down the edifice of the political
system that championed him.
But who is afraid of Ahmadinejad? In
February, the president played a
secretly filmed tape in the Iranian parliament - to the astonishment
of millions of Iranians listening on national radio - that revealed the
speaker's brother was allegedly trading on his sibling's influence for
financial gain.
Many fear that the president's team have
many more secret tapes and videos that could pose serious challenges to the
Islamic republic; others say that is a bluff. "They have installed hidden
cameras, listening devices in order to collect information and release them in
public," Mohammed Ali Montazeri, a judicial official, warned this week.
Baztab,
a conservative news website critical of the government, said in a report that
Ahmadinejad was rumored to possess a tape that shows he received a phone call
from the authorities right after the 2009 elections telling him they planned to
announce that he had won millions more votes than the real tally. This was
denied by the president's office this week and Baztab was taken offline on
Wednesday.
"There are things to say..."
Ahmadinejad said on a recent visit to the holy city of Qom, promising to reveal
them at a future date. The president's menacing language has infuriated his
rivals and, as elections approach, everyone is watching for any unexpected
movements that may embarrass the supreme leader.
