Iran Feature: The Battle to Become Speaker of Parliament

Larijani (left) and Haddad Adel (right)The political outcome of the Parliamentary elections may be a "mish-mash", with the Supreme Leader as the likely victor in his ability to control the legislature as well as the President, but the first battle of the new Majlis is shaping up --- and it's not directly about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Current Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, despite his allegiance to Ayatollah Khamenei, faces a serious challenge for his position. Unsurprisingly, his challenges to the Government have aroused the animosity of Ahmadinejad supporters, and he now has to contend with the alternative of Gholam Ali Haddad Adel --- former Speaker of Parliament, officially the top vote-getter in Tehran's Parliamentary ballot, and a member of the Supreme Leader's inner circle (his daughter is married to Khamenei's son Mojtaba).

An Iranian correspondent for EA surveys the situation....

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Iran Interview: What Happened on Election Day in 2009? (Mehrabi)

At the commission, the news went around by word of mouth. One news was that Mir Hossein Mousavi was planning to come to the commission. But no real news came into the headquarters.

Even prior to the voting, the Ministry [of Interior] appeared to be poised to win the election. We sensed that they seemed confident that they (the Ahmadinejad campaign) would win in any way. When we told the other reformist kids, who called us from the outside, of the atmosphere inside the building, they brushed us off as being influenced by the events inside.

We had no idea that they planned to rig the elections at this scale. When we spoke with reporters from the other side (i.e., supporting the administration), they told us that Ahmadinejad would win with 24 million votes.

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The Latest from Iran (21 February): Please Vote

See also Iran Audio Feature: Scott Lucas with the BBC on "War" and the Nuclear Programme
Iran Snapshot: The Difficulties of Getting Around Sanctions
The Latest from Iran (20 February): A Meeting with the Supreme Leader?

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1830 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Journalist Mahsa Amirabadi has been sentenced to a prison term for the second time in the past two years.

Amrabadi was given a five-year term, four of it suspended, for “assembly and collusion against national security". She wass charged with refusal to denounce opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi; attendance at gatherings of political prisoners to read the Qur'an; interviews and writing reports for newspapers; visits to independent members of the clergy; and defence of the rights of her husband, detained journalist Masoud Bastani.

Amrabadi, sentenced to one year in prison soon after the 2009 Presidential election, was arrested in March 2011 by intelligence officers of the Revolutionary Guards and released on bail.

Amrabadi's husband, Massoud Bastani,has been sentenced to six years in prison for his journalism.

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Latest from Iran (8 September): Fearing Persian Spring

2020 GMT: Warnings of the Day (cont.). Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi appears to have put out a caution to the President's office and to MPs: "There are some currents that try to depict the guardian jurist [the Supreme Leader] as not having the final say and distinguish the decrees of the Leader as governmental and non-governmental ones....From the viewpoint of such currents, seizing the Presidential office and the Parliament is the only way of changing the regime, this is why they are trying to attract the people."

And last but certainly not least, the head of judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, has criticised "certain executive offices" which "create obstacles in the path of the fight against economic corruption".

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The Latest from Iran (14 May): Say Uncle! (Again)

1925 GMT: Syria Watch. Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the head of Parliament's National Security Council, has said Iran is supporting the Assad regime because Damascus is backing the opposition to Israel’s occupation of Arab lands: “Syria is providing great assistance to resistance, therefore the position that we have taken is very natural.”

1915 GMT: The Next Wave of Attacks (cont.). Uskowi adds weight to our interpretation in the previous entry, pointing to Ahmad Tavakoli's criticism of Ahmadinejad's Ministerial dismissals (see 1305 GMT) as unduly hurried, sending a message of political “instability” and his specific denunciation of “that famous, deviationist and problematic character” --- read the President's Chief of Staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai --- as the instigator of the latest move.

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The Latest from Iran (28 November): Politics Does Not Stop

1625 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. The names of four of the seven activists detained in Marivan in Iranian Kurdistan have been published.

1550 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. The Supreme Leader's represetnative to the Revolutionary Guard, Mojtaba Zolnour, has renewed the allegation that the children of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani --- Mehdi Hashemi and Faezeh Hashemi --- were involved in the 2009 "sedition".

The regime has elevated its threats in recent weeks to arrest Mehdi Hashemi, who is currently in London.

1510 GMT: Press Watch. The managing directors of the conservative newspapers Fararu and Tabnak have been convicted of charges in a Tehran court.

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Iran's Economy and Politics: Tensions Rise over Subsidy Cuts

This is unlikely to be a headline story in non-Iranian press --- where is the drama in subsidy cuts? --- but it should be.

The Ahmadinejad Government's high-profile plan to reduce subsidies on food, energy, and other goods, softening the blow for those on lower incomes by handing out Government cheques, was supposed to be implemented in September. Then it was supposed to begin in October. Now it is scheduled for November.

Each week, however, features more rumblings on the economic and political fronts. This is a round-up of what only a day brings....

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