Iran election primer: After Ahmadinejad, who will lead?

worldnewsI

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

By Ali Arouzi, Correspondent, NBC News

Iran’s June 14 elections will showcase the country’s political system, which, not well understood by many in the West, combines strong Islamic theocracy with elements of democracy. A network of unelected institutions controlled by the powerful supreme leader is countered by a president and parliament elected by the people.

Here's a guide to Iran's labyrinthine governmental operations and a glimpse at some of the men hoping to occupy the top elected office in the country.

According Iran's constitution, the most powerful political office in the Islamic Republic is that of the supreme leader. Since its inception after the 1979 revolution that overthrew the monarchy, two men have occupied the role – the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and his successor Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The supreme leader appoints the head of the judiciary, six out of 12 members of the powerful Guardian Council, the armed forces’ commanders, the head of the country’s radio and television and Friday prayer leaders, who instruct the faithful in the performance of the Friday prayer in Iran. He also confirms the president's election.

Supreme leader's website via EPA

Iranian Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Under the constitution, the president is the second-most-important authority after the supreme leader. The president – currently Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – is elected for a four-year term by popular vote, and can serve no more than two consecutive terms. After a term away he can run for president again.

The president heads the executive branch of government, and is responsible for ensuring the constitution is implemented. 

Powerful clerical councils ultimately answer to the supreme leader.  The supreme leader controls the armed forces and makes most of the decisions regarding security, defense and major foreign policy.

The president appoints and supervises ministers, coordinates government decisions, and selects government policies to be placed before the legislature, but ultimately his power is curtailed by the influential clerical bodies.

All presidential hopefuls have to be vetted by the Guardian Council, the most influential body in Iran. The group, which consists of six theologians appointed by the supreme leader and six jurists nominated by the judiciary and approved by parliament, also has the authority to veto any bill passed by parliament, among other legislative and judicial powers.

An indication of the power held by the clerics and the supreme leader came on Friday when the head of the Guardian Council said it may disqualify presidential candidates who supported full relations with the United States, according to The Associated Press.

The contenders 

Three different tiers of the Iranian establishment appear to be competing against each other in the current elections.  The Guardian Council will release a list of approved candidates – culled from almost 700 who registered – to the Ministry of Interior by May 21.  The following list includes those thought to be most likely to make it onto the shortlist.

EPA, AP file

Candidates for Iran's upcoming presidential election: (from left) Former Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Velayati; Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf; speaker of parliament Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel; chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.

Supreme leader’s favorites The first camp of contenders consists of the supreme leader’s inner circle and those perceived to be loyal to him.

• Ali-Akbar Velayati, currently the supreme leader’s adviser on international affairs, served as foreign minister under several presidents.  He received a pediatrics degree from Johns Hopkins in 1974. Some observers believe that he lacks charisma when compared with others who are running.
• Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, Tehran mayor, is a veteran of the Iran -Iraq War. Since he became mayor in 2005, he has embarked on a series of ambitious civic projects that added to his popularity. He may be seen as too independent by conservative clerics.
• Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel, the speaker of parliament, is very much part of the supreme leader’s inner circle – his daughter is married to the supreme leader’s son. But its not clear how much popular support he has.
• Saeed Jalili is Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator. His loyalty to the supreme leader appears unwavering. He also has had substantial dealings with the West, granting occasional interviews and interacting with international counterparts.  

Ahmadinejad’s man President Ahmadinejad – who has been at odds with the clerical establishment shortly after the disputed elections in 2009 – has put all his political eggs in one controversial basket.  He is backing one figure, the divisive Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei. The two men have been very close for the last 30 years, and Mashaei's daughter married Ahmadinejad's oldest son in 2008.  

Conservative leaders in Iran have gone so far as branding Mashaei the head of deviant current within the government, a heretic and a foreign spy. Despite a chorus of disapproval for powerful members of the establishment Ahmadinejad has stayed loyal to him.

Ebrahim Noroozi / AP

Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani waves to media as he registers his candidacy for the upcoming presidential election in Tehran, Iran, on Saturday, May 11.

The ex-president, turned 'outsider' Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani – popularly nicknamed ‘The Shark’ because of his inability to grow a beard – is one of the great political survivors of the Islamic Republic.  

Related: Last-minute entry transforms Iranian race

Rafsanjani was the de facto commander-in-chief of the military during the Iran–Iraq War, which raged from 1980 to 1988. He was widely credited with the reconstruction of the country after the devastating conflict.  

Rafsanjani’s involvement with the revolutionary government came early and he became a cleric at the age of 14.  He was elected chairman of the Iranian parliament in 1980 and served until 1989. He is also known as a king maker, and was instrumental in the appointment of Ali Khamenei as supreme leader. 

At schools, in shops, and on the streets of big cities and small towns, daily life plays out in Iran.

Launch slideshow

Rafsanjani served as president of Iran from 1989 to 1997, and 2005 he ran for a third term in office.  He ultimately lost to rival Ahmadinejad in the run-off round.

Rafsanjani advocates a free market economy and is popular with the upper-middle class, who think he may be able to revive the economy.

He fell out of favor with the supreme leader because of his tacit support of the “Green Movement” protest that shook the country and provoked a violent crackdown in 2009.

BREAKING NEWS-Iran source: President Ahmadinejad arrested

wnd

Reza Kahlili

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was arrested and held for seven hours Monday and warned to keep his mouth shut about matters detrimental to the Islamic regime before he was released, according to a source within the Revolutionary Guard’s intelligence unit.

After his visit to Tehran’s 26th international book fair Monday, the source said the head of Ahmadinejad’s security team informed the Iranian president that he had been asked to appear at the supreme leader’s office for an urgent matter.

On the way to the meeting, contact between the security team within the president’s convoy was disconnected while three other cars joined the convoy, instructing the lead car to take a different direction. Ahmadinejad, instead of being taken to the supreme leader’s office, was taken to a secret location in one of the buildings belonging to the Foreign Ministry, which is under the control of the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence unit.

As soon as Ahmadinejad exited the car, he and his security team were involved in an altercation with Guards’ members in which his team was disarmed and communications equipment confiscated. Ahmadinejad was then forced to enter an office belonging to Hossein Taeb, the head of the Guards’ intelligence, located underneath the building.

As this was happening, the source said, hundreds of other Guards’ members from the intelligence unit sought out Ahmadinejad’s associates throughout Tehran and questioned them on the existence of documents detrimental to the regime.

Ahmadinejad was questioned for hours in a meeting with Taeb; Asghar Hejazi, the head of intelligence at the supreme leader’s office; Mojtaba Khamenei, the supreme leader’s son; and Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei, the attorney general. He was warned to back down from his claims against regime officials and given an ultimatum. The source added that Ahmadinejad was released back to his security team at 11:45 p.m. Monday, Tehran time.

Earlier, the regime’s media outlet Baztab reported that with just days remaining for the registration of presidential candidates, Ahmadinejad warned associates that if his hand-picked candidate to succeed him, a close confidant and a top adviser, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, was rejected as a candidate, then he would reveal tapes that will show the regime defrauded the voters in the 2009 presidential election.

One tape reportedly quotes officials as telling Ahmadinejad in 2009 that they will announce his total winning tally as 24 million votes where the real number was 16 million. In the same tape, Ahmadinejad insisted that the officials not do that. The Baztab site was immediately taken down by the regime’s security forces and is still offline.

Millions of Iranians took to the streets after the 2009 election results were reported, calling Ahmadinejad’s 62 percent tally of voters a fraud and demanding a free election. Thousands were arrested, with many tortured and executed. Ahmadinejad’s opponents, Mir Hossein Moysavi and Mehdi Karoubi, have been under house arrest ever since.

Under the constitution of the Islamic Republic, the 12-member Guardian Council decides the eligibility of who can run for office in the country, and anyone with any history of opposing the regime is barred from participation. The council is made up of six Islamic faqihs (experts in Islamic law) appointed by the supreme leader and six jurists nominated by the head of the Judiciary (who is himself appointed by the supreme leader), and then approved by the parliament.

Ahmadinejad had previously warned that he would release documents not only on high-ranking Guards officers but also on leading members of parliament and the Justice Department that prove financial fraud.

The source added that it will be interesting to see if Ahmadinejad takes the warning or if he creates more problems with the regime, but one thing is sure: He could end up dead if he doesn’t.

The public relations office of the Iranian president subsequently issued a press release rejecting the existence of such a tape that points to fraud in the 2009 elections. In its release, it stated that publishing such news, by the regime’s media Baztab, is only with the intention of creating instability before the upcoming elections.

Ahmadinejad’s scandalous moment with Hugo Chavez’s mother

Añadir leyenda

worldnews

By Kari Huus, Staff writer, NBC News

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have endeared himself to much of Latin America with his performance at the funeral of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, but minders of religious righteousness in his home country were unamused.

His sin — unfortunately for him captured in a photograph — transpired when he came cheek to cheek with a grieving Elena Frias, the mother of the late president, while clasping her hands. In strict Islamic societies, people are not supposed to touch others of the opposite gender unless they are related or married.

The image sparked a storm of controversy in the Iranian press, according to the English-language Iran Pulse, and went viral on Twitter and Facebook as users joked about it or speculated about how the conservative Islamic clerics back in Tehran would respond.

Their answer was swift and certain.

"In relation to what is allowed (halal) and what is forbidden (haram) we know that no unrelated women can be touched unless she is drowning at sea or needs (medical) treatment," said Hojat al-Islam Hossein Ibrahimi, member of the Society of Militant Clergy of Tehran, according to the Iran Pulse report.

Ahmadinejad was already under scrutiny by the conservative clerics who call the shots in Iran, and apparently they did not like the eulogy he gave for Chavez at the memorial ceremony.

They said it was another sign that a "deviant current" was driving the president a greater distance from the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

During the eulogy, Ahmadinejad said that Chavez "will come again along with Jesus Christ and Al-Imam al-Mahdi to redeem mankind,” putting the populist Venezuelan president and ex-paratrooper in the ranks of holy figures.

Mohammed Dehghan, a member of the Iranian parliament, called for religious scholars to confront Ahmadinejad’s "un-Islamic" acts, Al-Arabiya reported.

Some Shiite religious figures admonished the Iranian president to be become better educated about his religion. Others urged him not to make religious references for the rest of his campaign for re-election, while his supporters said the whole uproar was a part of a smear campaign.

A second controversial photograph surfaced that appeared to be of Ahmadinejad attending the funeral in Caracas last week, but it turned out to be a fake that amateurishly Photoshopped the Iranian president in a cheek-to-cheek moment with the former director-general of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Egyptian Mohamed ElBaradei.

Ahmadinejad: We're Nuclear But Won't Harm Israel

newsmax

www.theblaze.com

By Cyrus Afzali

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday that his nation now possesses nuclear technology, something that the international community has worked to prevent.

International sanctions have been in place against Iran since July 2006, as countries around the world have sought to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Iran has consistently maintained its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, a claim that is treated with suspicion in the west.

"We¹re already an industrial and nuclear country, a country that has conquered space," Ahmadinejad told the Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram on Wednesday referring to the country's recent claim that it launched a monkey into space.

Ahmadinejad is in Egypt for an Islamic summit, marking the first time since 1979 an Iranian leader has visited the country. He said his nation has no interest in attacking Israel. "They want to attack Iran, but we're not preparing any attack against them because the purpose of our program is defense," he said according to an English-language translation of his interview.

He told the Egyptian paper that while Israel might find it easy to launch missiles or attack the country using fighter jets, Iran's defense capabilities could withstand such an attack.

News of a potential Israeli attack on Iran first circulated in late 2012 when Martin Indyk, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel, predicted a war between the two countries is likely in early 2013. Speaking on the issue in September 2012, Indyk said he thought Iran had at most six months to negotiate a solution to avoid war.

The Iranian leader said the country's economy is able to withstand the impact of sanctions currently in place, saying that domestic oil production has replaced imports. One of the most damaging effects of sanctions has been a decline in the value of Iranian oil. Speaking to The New York Times in January, Iran's oil minister conceded that the value of oil exports had declined by up to 40 percent in the past year.

Ahmadinejad said he wants the world to treat Iran as a nuclear country and that it "will not go back to what it was in the past."

"They assume we'll give in to pressure; such thoughts are misguided," he said.

"For years, we have been thinking about sending a human being into space and we will do that, with (God's) help. We must ensure development and growth and bring them to pass and the world must acknowledge our progress."

Ahmadinejad again used anti-Israel rhetoric when discussing the Palestinian situation.

"For us, supporting the Palestinian people is a matter of human importance in every sense. The Palestinians must receive their rights, and the Zionists are moving closer and closer toward the edge," he said.

Ahmadinejad also indicated a willingness to reach out to Egypt, which has historically been a rival, and was ready to offer aid.

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/ahmadinejad-nuclear-iran-israel/2013/02/06/id/489187#ixzz2K9Dcmt7d
Urgent: Should Obamacare Be Repealed? Vote Here Now!

Iran Unveils 'Radar-Evading' Jet

foxnews

TEHRAN, Iran –  Iran unveiled on Saturday its newest combat jet, a domestically manufactured fighter-bomber that military officials claim can evade radar.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a ceremony broadcast on state TV that building the Qaher-313, or Dominant-313, shows Iran's will to "conquer scientific peaks."
The Qaher is one of several aircraft designs rolled out by the Iranian military since 2007. Tehran has repeatedly claimed to have developed advanced military technologies in recent years but its claims cannot be independently verified because the country does not release technical details of its arsenals.
The Islamic republic launched a self-sufficiency military program in the 1980s to compensate for a Western weapons embargo that banned export of military technology and equipment to Iran. Since 1992, Iran has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles, torpedoes, drones and fighter planes.
"Qaher-313 is a fully indigenous aircraft designed and built by our aerospace experts. This is a radar-evading plane that can fly at low altitude, carry weapons, engage enemy aircrafts and land at short airstrips," Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said.
Some reports however suggest Iran's program relies on equipment supplied by major international defense contractors -- incorporating parts made abroad or reverse-engineered technologies into its domestic designs.
Still photos of the Qaher released by the official IRNA news agency and pictures on state TV show a single-seat jet. They described it as a fighter-bomber that can combat both other aircraft and ground targets.
Iran's English-language state Press TV said Qaher was similar to the American-made F/A-18, an advanced fighter capable of dogfighting as well as penetrating enemy air defenses to strike ground targets.
Physically, Press TV said, the aircraft resembles the F-5E/F Tiger II, a much older American design that Iran has had in its arsenal since it was supplied to the U.S.-allied regime of the Shah before Iran's 1979 revolution.
"Development depends on our will. If we don't have a will, no one can take us there," Ahmadinejad told the inauguration ceremony in Tehran. "Once we imported cars and assembled them here. Now, we are at a point where we can design, build and get planes in the air."
Iran unveiled what it said was its first domestically manufactured fighter jet, called Azarakhsh or Lightning, in 2007. In the same year, it claimed that Azarakhsh had reached industrial production stage.
Saeqeh, or Thunder, was a follow-up aircraft derived from Azarakhsh. Iran unveiled its first squadron of Saeqeh fighter bombers in an air show in September 2010.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/02/02/ahmadinejad-unveils-iran-newest-fighter-jet-dominant-described-as-evading/#ixzz2JleeyveB

Ahmadinejad meets Cuba's Raul Castro

Chavez, Ahmadinejad joke about 'big atomic bomb'

Venezuelan presidency via EPA

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, left, greets Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, on Monday.

  msnbc.com news services/

CARACAS, Venezuela — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez lavished praise on each other on Monday, mocked U.S. disapproval and joked about having an atomic bomb at their disposal.

The fiery anti-U.S. ideologues have forged increasingly close ties between their fellow OPEC nations in recent years, although concrete projects have often lagged behind the rhetoric.

Both leaders dismissed U.S. concerns about Iran's intentions in the Middle East and its growing diplomatic links with Chavez and his allies in Latin America. More >>

#Iran - #Ahmadinejad wants to resign

There is a serious and growing rift in Iran between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader. Ahmadinejad has reportedly asked the Khamenei if he can resign. Al Jazeera's Dorsa Jabbari reports from Tehran.

#Ahmadinejad: God has chosen my successor

Iranian president tells council heads in Tehran, 'Future has already been determined. God knows who will come after me'

Dudi Cohen

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says his replacement as Iranian president has already been chosen by God, a local website reported Saturday. "Friends told me, 'We are concerned about the future,'" Ahmadinejad said in a meeting with council heads in Tehran. "I told them, 'The future has already been determined. Go to work and the results will come.'

"One of them asked me, 'Who will be next?' I said, 'Don't you think God knows who's next.'"
Ahmadinejad did not name anyone specific, but according to Iranian estimates he was implying that he wants his associate Esfandiar Rahim Mashai to replace him. Mashai served as Ahmadinejad's deputy in the past, before being fired for saying that the Iranian people are friends of Israel. 

More  Here