Saeed Kamali Dehghan - Rift between Iran's ayatollah and re-elected president widens
Tensions are mounting
between Iran’s supreme leader and the country’s president after the latter’s
landslide victory in last month’s election. Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, 78, has sharpened his criticism of the reformist president,
Hassan Rouhani, including humiliating him in a meeting of the country’s most senior
officials. A hardliner keen to
preserve his legacy, Khamenei is believed to have tacitly backed Ebrahim Raisi,
Rouhani’s rival, in the election.
The president, who
increased his mandate by 5m votes when he won his second term, fired back this
week by saying that the political legitimacy of a religious leader is
determined by the “people’s will and invitation” – comments that supporters of
Khamenei, whose position as supreme leader is a lifelong appointment, have
received with disdain. Clerics sympathetic to
Khamenei argue that the legitimacy of the leader, or the rule of the Islamic
jurist (Velayat-e-Faghih) is divine.
Rouhani’s comments
come after Khamenei delivered a withering speech last week to an audience of
senior officials including Rouhani, the judiciary chief and the parliamentary
speaker. “Mr President has
talked at great lengths about the country’s economy and well, he’s said ‘this
should be done’, ‘that should be done’,” Khamenei said. “But who is he
addressing by mentioning the ‘should dos’?” the ayatollah asked, before
responding: “Himself.” A video circulating online of
that moment shows the audience bursting into laughter while Rouhani smiles
uncomfortably.
Khamenei continued:
“In 1980-1981 the then president polarised society in two camps, and divided
the country into opponents and supporters; this should not be repeated.” The ayatollah was
referring to the first post-revolutionary president, Abolhassan Banisadr, who
was impeached and later exiled after clashing with the clerical establishment.
Rouhani’s supporters view the leader’s comments as a warning that he may face a
similar fate.
Ali Ansari, director
of the Institute of Iranian Studies at St Andrews University, said Khamenei was
attempting to curb Rouhani’s rising popularity after his election success. “After the elections
Khamenei was unhappy with the results and they’re trying to contain it,” Ansari
said. “It’s all standard stuff that we heard in 2000, 2001 when they got a bit
panicky and worried about what [former reformist president Mohammad] Khatami
would try and do. They want to send a message to Rouhani to get back into your
box.” He added: “He’s
interestingly saying, I’m not.”
The power struggle has
also seen Rouhani forced to defend his success at the ballot box. Addressing a
group of university professors, he referred to Ali ibn Abi Talib, the prophet
Muhammad’s son-in-law, a revered Shia figure also respected by Sunnis, who
became a caliph only when people showed him support. “We are not following
western beliefs when we’re holding elections and going after people’s votes,”
he said, insisting that democracy was not a western gift. “We belong to a
religion in which [Imam Ali] based his leadership on people’s will and people’s
vote.” .. read more:
