Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani yesterday criticised Iran’s conservative camp for excluding reformist candidates from the elections due to be held later this month.
Rafsanjani said that the conservatives’s approach will deepen the differences between the two sides.
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The Iranian Students’s News Agency (ISNA) quoted Rafsanjani as saying, during a ceremony to mark the 37th anniversary of Khomeini’s return to Tehran from France: “They excluded the most similar person to Imam Khomeini; his grandson.”
Addressing the conservative, he asked: “Who has decided that you are more qualified to rule than others? Who gave you the right to take all the weapons and all the pulpits of prayer on Friday, and manage state television?”
Iran’s conservative-dominated Guardian Council has discounted thousands of people who are seeking to run in parliamentary elections and four-fifths of candidates for the council which will choose the next Supreme Leader of Iran.
The elections are scheduled to be held on 26 February to choose the members of the 290-seat parliament, which also includes the 88-member Assembly of Experts.
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