Hassan Rowhani, Not Rafsanjani Will Run In Elections

In an exclusive interview with Rooz, a member of the central council of the conservative group Jame Rohaniate Mobarez (Society of Combatant Clerics) said that the head of the State Expediency Council Hashemi Rafsanjani would not be running in the June presidential elections and added that Hassan Rowhani, the head of the Strategic Studies Center at the Expediency Council would be the presidential candidate.

Rowhani is accepted to be a close politician to Rafsanjani who was removed from the team that engaged in the nuclear talks with the West when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power, giving his position to Ali Larijani, who subsequently became and currently is the head of parliament.

Rowhani is a member of the State Expediency Council, the Assembly of Experts on Leadership and a member of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.

After Ahmadinejad was elected president in 2005, Rowhani was harshly criticized for his approach to the nuclear talks by the new president, his allies and the principlists close to the country’s supreme leader, and even ayatollah Khamenei himself.

In response to a question about how much support would Rowhani receive from Rafsanjani, Reza Akrami said it was too soon to talk about that.

Principlists have interpreted Rafsanjani’s remarks that he recently made to a group of former Majlis representatives to be indicative that he is interested in becoming a candidate in the next presidential race. But Akrami rejected that possibility and expressly said that Rafsanjani would not be a candidate.

Next To Rafsanjani

Rafsanjani, Rowhani and Akrami are three senior members of the Combatant Clerics, a conservative group led by Mohammad-Reza Mahdavi Kani who replaced Rafsanjani in 2011. At that time Rafsanjani announced that he would not run in “any elections” and while he would encourage people to vote, “nobody should expect this of me because of my age.” In the 2009 presidential election, Combatant Clerics were split over their support for Ahmadinejad or Mir-Hossein Mousavi and ultimately failed to come to a conclusion. But Mahdavi Kani did announce his personal choice which was support for Ahmadinejad while Akrami became the head of Mousavi’s presidential campaign, while another member Mohsen Doagoo officially announced his support for Mousavi.

At that time it was announced that Rafsanjani, Rowhani, Ali Akbar Nategh Nouri, Mohammad Emami Kashani and a number of other veteran and key members of Combatant Clerics supported Mousavi against Ahmadinejad.

During the live televised presidential debates of 2009 between Mousavi and Ahmadinejad, after the latter accused Rafsanjani and Nategh Nouri of financial and political corruption, Combatant Clerics refrained from supporting these two members because of which Rafsanjani, Nategh Nouri, Rowhani and a number of others refrained from participating in the group’s meetings and gatherings.

If Rowhani announces his presidential bid he will be the second person from this group to take that route after Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi who is the current head of the state inspectorate organization.

Rowhani has been a regular critic of Ahmadinejad’s administration. Aftab website (close to Etedal va Tose party which is close to the Strategic Studies Center) recently published a report quoting Rowhani criticizing the head of the current administration. He specifically said that while Ahmadinejad’s administration had had an income of over 76- billion Dollars, people were suffering from inflation at unprecedented levels. He has called for using specialists and exports in all fields, including political groups. He is quoted to have said that foreign policy should be used to improve the economic conditions of the country. He has called for the pursuit of “all national rights, including the nuclear right.” On relations with the US, he has said that “talks are possible under conditions that meet the national interests of Iran and with the approval of the supreme leader.” A spokesperson for the Etedal party labeled Rowhani as a moderate, and not a reformist.