The Latest from Iran (25 December): A Compliment for the Supreme Leader?

0755 GMT: Elections Watch. Yesterday we highlighted a statement by Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, a leader of the Islamic Constancy Front, positioning it before March's Parliamentary elections with declarations of loyalty to the Supreme Leader but support for the camp of President Ahmadinejad. An EA reader extends the analysis by noting Mesbah Yazdi's assault on the reformists, whom anti-Ahmadinejad conservatives are hoping to bring into the elections --- he summarises Yazdi's comments:

Reformists started the "deviations" right after [the Iran/Iraq] war, because they could not during the war. Reformists denounced velayat-e faqih [clerical supremacy] and started the separation of Islam from politics and democracy. We chose Ahmadinejad [in 2005] because he had the guts to run with Islamic slogans, unlike everyone else afraid of losing people's votes....The Constancy Front is worried, for the sake of "unity", that seditionists will be allowed to join as "principlists" and gain power again.

0740 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. A far-from-subtle intervention from Khabar Online, the website linked to Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, which offers a platform for MP Ali Motahari, a leader of the campaign against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to explain why the Parliamentary interrogation of the President is necessary.

The petition to question Ahmadinejad, which has the required minimum of signatures, is now being considered by the Board of the Parliament.

The website also highlights a member of Parliament who said that the explanations of the Central Bank head, Mahmoud Bastani --- appearing before a closed session this week about economic issues and the currency crisis --- were not satisfactory.

0710 GMT: Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar was Shah of Persia at the end of the 18th century. He "restored Persia to a unity it had not had since the fall of the Safavid dynasty [in the early 18th century]. He was, however, a man of extreme violence who killed almost all who could threaten his hold on power." 

We mention this because the Agha has appeared in an open letter to the 21st-century Supreme Leader from the exiled Iranian intellectual Abdolkarim Soroush, who asks, "Why should your behaviour remind us of Mohammad Khan who loved poetry, celebrated [the religious day of ] Ashura, beheaded people, and gouged eyes with his own hands?"

Meanwhile....

Currency Watch

The Iranian rial is holding this morning at 14300:1 vs. the US dollar.

After intervention by the Central Bank earlier this week, the rial fell from 15390:1 to just over 14000:1 before sliding back on Saturday morning.

Elections Watch

The message from leading conservative MP Ahmad Tavakoli, carrying on an campaign amongst critics of President Ahmadinejad, is blunt: "Real reformists will not boycott the elections."

Foreign Affairs Watch

The Foreign Ministry has suddenly replaced Ali Ahani and Mohammad Ali Fathollahi, two of the deputies to Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi. Ali Asghar Khaji has been appointed as deputy for Europe and the US, while Abbas Araqchi is now the deputy for Asia and Oceania. No reason was given for the changes.