IRANIANS WELCOMED MR. RAFSANJANI'S RESIGNATION FROM MAJLES
PARIS 26TH May (IPS) Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani resigned Thursday from his controversial seat at the Sixth Iranian Majles (parliament) few hours after thousands of students joined by ordinary people chanted at the Tehran University campus "Shah, Shah, Akbar Shah Say, Say Death to Shah".
Reformist personalities and students leaders immediately welcomed his decision.
Mr. Heshmatollah Tabarzadi, the leader of the Office of Consolidation of Unity (OCU), Iranian students largest organisation said the fall of Hashemi Rafsanjani would pave the way for the transfer of power from monopolists to reformists.
He said Mr. Rafsanjani must be also removed from his position as the Chairman of the Expediency Council or this institution would lose credit with the public.
The new 290 seats Majles that is to be inaugurated on Saturday is by President Mohammad Khatami is overwhelmingly dominated by reformists led by Dr Mohammad Reza Khatami, the Secretary General of the Islamic Iran Participation Party who is the younger brother of the president.
In a statement distributed Thursday by the official news agency IRNA, the former president acknowledged that he had been the target of a "heavy volume of negative and false propaganda prior to the holding of the elections and during the electoral campaign as well as during vote counting".
"From the outset, Mr. Rafsanjani was dissuaded by his friends from entering the election, but well, he had a different opinion of his real position with the public. He was again told to resign during the vote counting, but again, he refused. Anyhow, as says an Iranian proverb that stopping losses anytime is making profit, his decision, even late, is an omen for it will diminish further conflicts at the future Majles", the secretary General of the Iran Freedom Movement Dr Ebrahim Yazdi told the Persian service of the Radio France Internationale.
In fact, as soon as Mr. Rafsanjani had announced his decision to participate in the electoral race a flood of critical articles questioning his eight years of presidency, including the role played by his Intelligence Minister nicknamed "The Red Eminency" in the assassination of more than 80 Iranian political and intellectual dissidents filled the reformist press.
One of the last blow to Mr. Rafsanjani's prestige was when an investigative journalist named him as the main responsible for the prolongation of the Iran-Iraq war for another devastating 6 years after the "liberation" of the city-port of Khorramshahr on the Shatol Arab border river.
Informed sources say Mr. Rafsanjani was "persuaded" by conservatives to get involved in the elections with the hope to see him at the helm of the next Majles they knew will be dominated by the reformists.
But when the first results for Tehran were announced, Mr. Rafsanjani was not among the candidates who had won the Capital's 30 seats, all of them but one occupied by the reformists.
The defeat of the man who was considered as one of the pillars of the Islamic Republic came as a shock to the Iranians but mostly to the conservatives who had rallied around him.
Then started a series of humiliating maneuvering by the conservatives-controlled Council of Guardians with the aim of "pushing" Mr. Rafsanjani among Tehran candidates.
Eventually, it took the Council more than three months and a lot of rigging, "name playing" and vote counting to finally declare Mr. Rafsanjani as the twentieth candidate from the Capital, a farce that would confirm the famous proverb which says "with such friends one does not need enemies".
"Hashemi Rafsanjani was the monopolists last bullet to save them from total debacle. After (the Council of Guardians) placed him at the twentieth position, in the one hand he faced students and popular protests and on the other he realised that not only he would never get to the presidency of the Majles, but his credential may well be refused and his past record revealed, including his financial corruption, his role in the assassinations of dissidents, the vote rigging and frauds in his favour", Mr. Tabarzadi pointed out.
In his statement addressed to the nation, Mr. Rafsanjani acknowledges that there are still "some ambiguities and doubts about the Tehran election results" which, in his view, "can become a pretext for the enemies of the nation to undermine the unity of the forces committed to the Islamic System".
"I also forgive those few individuals and groups who mistakenly or, God forbid, out of hostility and rancor, leveled accusations, slander or unhealthy criticism against me, and ask the Almighty for forgiveness for myself and all others", the former president says in a reference to investigative journalists like Mr. Akbar Ganji who is in jail.
Mr. Rafsanjani's more or less expected resignation deprives the Majles's tiny conservative minority fraction from a strong leader.
Observers say considering the fact that a reformists-dominated Majles will have conflictual relations with the conservatives-controlled Council of Guardians, a body that must make sure that bills passed by the Majles are in conformity with Islamic laws, in his role as the Chairman of the Expediency Council, Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani can easily take his revenge on the reformists as in case the Council and the parliament are not able to solve their differences, they have to come to the Expediency Council for the last word. ENDS RAFSANJANI RESIGNATION 26500