A selection of the latest news stories and editorials published in Iranian news outlets, compiled by AEI Critical Threats Project Iran Analyst Will Fulton.
 

Politics

• 100 MPs have signed a letter to the Guardian Council urging it to disqualify former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani for his “confrontation with the velayat-e faqih and opposition to elements of the resistance against the Zionist regime.”


• Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei urged maximum participation in the elections and discussed the qualifications that the people should seek in a candidate:
  
  
  
  • “To achieve their goals and make the enemy fail, the people, with a warm and passionate presence in elections, should choose a competent, pious, faithful, revolutionary, perseverent, determined, resistant, and ‘capable of Jihadi effort’ individual from among the candidates that the Guardian Council introduces based on legal standards, so [he] can carry and advance the heavy weight of the country’s esteem and progress better than other candidates.”
  
  
  • “The Iranian people are seeking a qualified individual who can advance the country in material and spiritual realms at a more rapid rate, and while solving existing problems and creating a better and more prosperous life, [he] can expand Iran’s esteem and independence in the ray of ‘the people’s passion, excitement, and hope.’”
  
  
  
  


• Member of the Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Affairs Commission MP Ahmad Bakhshayeshi stated, “If Rafsanjani had not entered the elections, the Guardian Council would have chosen the five-way election model [Meaning Guardian Council would choose five candidates], but the Guardian Council does not know, with Hashemi's presence, whether or not to approve [Rafsanjani], but because we are seeking political valor Hashemi will be approved.” He added, “If Hashemi had not come, [President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s advisor and presidential candidate Esfandiar Rahim] Mashai would not have come either and political valor would not have taken shape.”


• The father of one of the victims of the 2009 post-election Kahrizak detention center fatalities told Iranian media that “the Supreme Leader has issued the order to confront those responsible for the death of my son with a legal trial.”


• Fars News Agency Managing Director Nezamoddin Mousavi said, “Political infertility has formed in some groups and revolutionary forces must be vigilant [that] a new sedition does not take place.”


• Head of the Judiciary Branch Ayatollah Sadegh Amoli Larijani announced, “The Judiciary branch and security and law enforcement forces will not allow the opportunity for sly discussions like cheating and new sedition in the elections.”


• 2+1 Coalition member Gholam Ali Haddad Adel said, “We [are engaged] in an economic warfare but we absolutely do not need to fight all the world’s countries in this path because the revolution will penetrate other countries with its behavior.”


• Head of the Islamic Humanity Sciences Research Center Hojjat al-Eslam Reza Gholami noted that, considering the country’s current situation, the election of former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani would “cause the suspension of the country’s [rapidly advancing] progress.”


• Presidential candidate Ali Reza Zakani said, “Hashemi [Rafsanjani] and all the individuals who assist him do not have the capacity for victory and will only succeed in the case of division amongst Principlists, therefore Principlists need convergence.”


• Guardian Council Member Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi said, “[We] must pray for the perseverance of this Islamic system that is the result of the blood of thousands of martyrs. Today we have difficult circumstances ahead of us and [we] must ask God to banish the evil of the enemies of Islam.”


• Senior Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Nouri Hamedani announced, “Until today we have neither introduced nor proposed an individual and have not determined a candidate, and this will be the basis until the end [election day].”

• Intelligence Minister Hojjat al-Eslam Heydar Moslehi stated that his agency is prepared to “neutralize…enemy conspiracies.” He added, “The majority of these [enemy] measures will be in the media realm.”


• IRGC Public Relations deputy BG 2C Ramezan Sharif affirmed the IRGC’s non-involvement in the upcoming elections and added, “Explanation of enemy threats against the revolution and national awareness toward it is the people’s expectation of the [IRGC].”

• Supreme National Security Council Secretary and presidential candidate Said Jalili said, “We are awaiting the answer of the P5+1 to Iran’s suggestion,” and added, “The nuclear matter is a national, non-partisan, and consensus-based matter that the presidential elections will not affect.”