Motalefe’s Time to be Outcast

A week after the eight Majlis passed heated legislature in support of Iran’s largest institution of higher education Azad University the battles by others and competing members of the parliament continue. According to the government media, pro-administration Majlis representatives are looking into ways to remove chairman of the education and research committee Ali Abbaspour Tehranifar, who is a senior member of the Hezbe Motalefe Eslami (Islamic Coalition Party). Abbaspour is also the brother in law of the Majlis speaker Ali Larijani by virtue of being married to the sister of Morteza Motahari, the leading Islamic thinker cleric of the Islamic revolution and head of the Revolutionary Council who was assassinated in 1979. He is also the brother of Abdollah Jasbi’s wife. Jasbi is the current head of Azad University.

Pro-Ahmadinejad Majlis representatives believe that Abbaspour tricked them and played the key role in passing a law in the parliament that supported Azad University’s current constitution and also refrained from presenting an opposing recommendation that was made regarding the university by the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council.

A member of Majlis’ education committee told semi official Fars news agency, “The fate of Abbaspour will be decided next Sunday at a meeting in the presence of the speaker of the Majlis or one of his deputies.”

Speaking with reporters, representative Noorollah Heydari said, “Eleven members of the committee who oppose the bill and Abbaspour are boycotting participating in the Majlis committee and instead appeared at the speaker’s office demanding a decision on Abbaspour.”

According to the controversial bill, the amendments that have been recommended by the Cultural Revolution Council and entail changing the current constitution of Azad University were defeated in the Majlis because of a motion orchestrated by Abbaspour. The changes would result in the departure of the long-standing president of the university who is a close associate of Hashemi Rafsanjani. In addition to this, pro-administration Majlis deputies assert that those who threw out the recommendations to change the university’s constitution are also taking a position against the wishes and demands of the supreme leader. A Majlis deputy explained that a bill regarding private universities was not sent to Majlis’ education committee by Abbaspour as was required by parliament’s by-laws. Heydari said the reason Abbaspour did not send the bill was that he was opposed to it. “He believed that the provisions of the bill would restrict the university,” he said. Heydari explained that Abbaspour knew the Majils by laws and the specific provisions that would allow him to ignore the counter bill that contained the recommendations of the Cultural Revolution Council. He added that Jasbi and Abbaspour worked together as a lobby to protect Azad University.
Abbaspour, a two time chairman of Majlis’ education committee and a member of the Cultural Revolution Council, is a long sanding member of the coalition of right wing parties in Iran known as the Motalefe (i.e. Islamic Coalition Party). His brother was the minister of energy in the early years of the revolution who was killed at the Islamic Republic party explosion.

Efforts by administration supporters to remove Abbaspour from his chairmanship take place at a time when many observers had warned earlier that as the right increased its power in the country, the more conservative elements of the faction, including the Motalefe, would be purged and removed from power. Noting this possibility, Motalefe tried to modify its positions to be closer to the leadership and supported Ahmadinejad’s presidency, explained Habibollah Asqar Owladi, himself a member of the traditional right.

The history of differences between Ahmadinejad and the traditional right, particularly Motalefe, go back to the presidential elections of 2001. In that election, the three main factions of the right battled each other. The first faction was the Jame Rohaniyat Mobarez and Motalefe which tried to present its own candidates, along with Ali Akbar Nategh Nouri. The result was the candidacy of Ali Larijani. Analysts believe that the 2 million votes that he got in the 2005 presidential election is indicative of the size of the popular support the faction enjoys. The other faction is the Jamiate Isargaran Engelab Eslami (Society for Devotees of the Islamic Revolution) that did not support Larijani and had its own candidate: Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf. This group was led by Hossein Fadai, Alireza Zakani, Ahmad Tavakoli and others which according to Amir Mohebian, the strategist of the right, created such hell for the traditional right and Nategh Nouri  that they still refer to the period as their bitterest days in the faction. The third faction was Ahmadinejad who was supported by mostly unknown individuals in Tehran’s city council and of course the Basij who said he did not believe in the umbrella organization that contained members of all the three factions of the right.

When Ahmadinejad won the race in 2001, ayatollah Khamenei appointed Larijani, the candidate from the traditional right, to lead Iran’s nuclear dossier and talks with the international community through Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. Differences between the traditional right and the new group led by Ahmadinejad began over cultural and economic issues. They heightened as high level economic strategy was discussed and separated the two groups more deeply. Ahmadinejad’s personal disrespect for the traditional clerics that constituted the key support of the Motalefe intensified these differences.

In 1998 when Aswar Owladi who was the head of the Jebhe Peyrovane Khate Imam (a coalition of traditional right wing groups), along with Mohammad Reza Bahonar, the secretary general of the Jame Islami Mohandesin, went to see Ahmadinejad to talk about the tenth presidential elections. They were blatantly told that Ahmadinejad did not need the support of the traditional right. This faction then decided to present its own presidential candidate to challenge Ahmadinejad. They considered Ali Akbar Velayati, Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani, Ali Akbar Nategh Nouri, Ali Larijani, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, Mohammad Yazdi, among others, but following Asqar Owladi’s meeting with ayatollah Khamenei in 1999, Motalefe announced its support for Ahmadinejad.

Recently, following Ahmadinejad’s stern remarks about fighting badly dressed women, Mohammad Nabi Habibi, the secretary general of Motalefe went to Qom and after meeting with the senior clerics there, strongly criticized the president in public. Habibi said that the clerics supported Ahmadinejad as a principal and this did not mean they completely approved of everything he was doing. Some of Ahmadinejad’s cultural remarks and those of his chief of staff Rahim Mashai brought forth strong responses from the Motalefe and traditional clerics, but Ahmadinejad has chosen to ignore them.

It should be noted that in the battle between Ahmadinejad and his administration over  Azad University, even some of the senior elements in the Motalefe such as Anbarlooi and Taraghi who have supported Ahmadinejad and opposed Hashemi Rafsanjani, have now remained silent and do not support the president.