TEHRAN Iranian officials on Monday issued blunt threats of violence againsttwo last-minute registrantsfor the June 14 presidential election whose unwanted presence on the ballot has angered the countrys governing establishment.The two latecomers, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president, and Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, an aide to the current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, shook up the landscape of the elections on Saturday. Until they appeared, the registration process had been almost exclusively dominated by candidates representing the countrys establishment of conservative Shiite Muslim clerics and Revolutionary Guards commanders.
On Monday, Irans national deputy police commander, Esmael Ahmadi Moghaddam, was quoted by the newspaper Shargh as issuing a warning to President Ahmadinejad and Mr. Mashaei that the shedding of blood is allowed if they do not stop claiming to take their orders from the Shiite messiah.
The message, wrapped in ideological and religious wording, is the strongest indication yet that Mr. Ahmadinejads faction could be purged, after or even during the elections.
This statement, by such a senior figure, equals a call to violence against Ahmadinejad, Mashaei and their group, said one analyst who asked not to be named out of fear for his safety. I dont see how they can have any place in the system after the elections.
Mr. Mashaei, 52, and Mr. Ahmadinejad have hinted in speeches at a personal relationship with the Shiite messiah, the 12th imam.
Those remarks run counter to the founding ideology of the Islamic republic, which is based upon the rule of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the clergy. They are regarded as the messiahs worldly caretakers in expectation of the return of the imam, who, according to tenets, went into occultation, a kind of suspended state, in the year 941. Every year dozens of people are arrested in Iran for claiming to be the messiah, who is a popular saint, or to have close relations with him.
Mr. Ahmadinejad and Mr. Mashaei have often stated that they are fully submissive to Ayatollah Khamenei, but the men have had public disagreements. In 2009, Ayatollah Khamenei prevented Mr. Mashaei from becoming vice president, and in 2011 Mr. Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei wrangled publicly over the intelligence minister, whom the president dismissed and the ayatollah reinstated.
Indirectly calling the president and his associate members of the deviant current, a label given to them by governing clerics and commanders, Mr. Ahmadi Moghaddam, the deputy police commander, said those adhering to Islam must seek allegiance with the countrys supreme leader. Currently they are not fully following him, he said. Koran and the leader are inseparable institutions.
Also on Monday, the top editor of the countrys influential state-run newspaper invoked the rallying cry of a notorious pressure group whose members shout Hezbollah Mashallah, or Well done, Hezbollah, as they use violence against political opponents.
If they again have the idea of creating disturbances, they must know that the devotees, Hezbollah, will not allow them to do so even for a few hours, he wrote in a column headlined Hezbollah Mashallah, warning the two rogue candidates.
The editor, Hossein Shariatmadari, who is appointed by Ayatollah Khamenei, is the most important figure in the Iranian news media. In his editorials he often lays the foundations for state decisions.
Mr. Rafsanjani, he wrote, was a representative for the American-Israeli sedition of 2009, referring to the protests that erupted after the last presidential elections, which were considered fraudulent. Those in power widely accuse the former president of engineering the demonstrations and say he is therefore unfit to lead the country.
Mr. Ahmadinejad is suicidal, Mr. Shariatmadari wrote, for openly aligning himself with Mr. Mashaei, as when he said recently that he and his aide were one and the same. The editor predicted that the president is preparing to create unrest, in case Mr. Mashaei is not allowed to participate. He also said that Mr. Ahmadinejad, Mr. Mashaei and Mr. Rafsanjani had made a pact in an effort to stay in power.
Secret messages between both groups are being exchanged, he wrote, adding that any coordination between both candidates would be useless. The life of the Ahmadinejad government is over, he said. And Mr. Rafsanjani will undoubtedly face defeat.
By The New York Times
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