The Guardian Council Against the Elders
The Guardian Council Against the Elders: The first attempt by the Guardian Council to restrict and set boundaries for candidates dates back to the first half of the year 1981, when Ehsan Tabari, Mohammad Ali Amoui, and Nouruddin Kianouri, among the prominent members of the Tudeh Party, were present in the mid-term parliamentary election race. Following a request from the Guardian Council, citing that these individuals could not swear an oath to the holy books of divine religions, they were thus excluded from the competition.
Now, 45 years have passed since that period, and the discussion of restricting the circle of candidates has reached the point of referencing individuals’ criticisms of the judiciary and the Guardian Council.
In any case, concerns about the future of the republic system began at that time, and now the circle of insiders has become narrower by the day, making entry into the competition arena more difficult. The first effect of this is the people’s despair in determining their fate, and its secondary effect could be the weakening of the government’s foundations due to losing its social base.
The disqualification of Hassan Rouhani in the Assembly of Experts election on February 4th of last year was among the news that remained a topic of discussion regarding its reasons until just yesterday. Ultimately, after multiple correspondences by Rouhani requesting the Guardian Council to publicly announce the reasons for his disqualification and mostly verbal comments from Guardian Council members regarding this request, a letter from Rouhani was published, explaining these reasons, responding to them, and warning about the future of the republic system with this institution’s approach.
Rouhani’s recent letter was written after Hadi Tahan Nazif, the spokesperson of the Guardian Council, reacted in a press conference on May 6th with media representatives to Rouhani’s previous statements about the reasons for his disqualification, stating: ‘The qualification review for the Assembly of Experts is with the jurists of the Guardian Council, and the emphasis of the dear ones has always been on enforcing the law. These statements are not new.’
Apparently, some people think the Guardian Council’s understanding is high when they are approved, but have different words when they are rejected.
In response to a question about the reasons for Hassan Rouhani’s disqualification, Tahan Nazif emphasized: ‘The issues that were communicated to him in writing are numerous and not limited to the few points he raised. Even those few points were not presented accurately.’
Rouhani’s disqualification, given that until the last election period he was among the insiders of the government and easily passed through the Guardian Council’s gate, holds special significance.
However, his warning about the erosion of the republic system, from the perspective of various political currents that now form a large part of the country’s political community but are not aligned with the dominant current in decision-making bodies, and who were previously excluded from the competition with the sharp blade of supervisory oversight, is more interpretable as the remaining republic being at risk of weakening. Otherwise, many influential political figures in the history of the Islamic Republic have addressed this impending damage and warned about it following the Guardian Council’s new interpretation of its type of supervision and its transformation from informational to supervisory after the constitutional revision.
Among them, the majority of the current known as reformists, alongside members of organizations like the National Front and the Freedom Movement, and some recognized moderate and principled figures, from Mir Hossein Mousavi and Seyed Mohammad Khatami and Mehdi Karroubi to Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ali Akbar Nategh Nouri, Ali Larijani, and now Hassan Rouhani have reacted to this issue in his detailed letter.
We will continue to look at the correspondences and positions of some of these figures following the Guardian Council’s supervisory oversight and the increasingly closed circle of individuals who have been able to pass this institution’s hurdle.
The first attempt by the Guardian Council to restrict and set boundaries for candidates dates back to the first half of the year 1981, when Ehsan Tabari, Mohammad Ali Amoui, and Nouruddin Kianouri, among the prominent members of the Tudeh Party, were present in the mid-term parliamentary election race. Following a request from the Guardian Council, citing that these individuals could not swear an oath to the holy books of divine religions, they were thus excluded from the competition.
Now, 45 years have passed since that period, and the discussion of restricting the circle of candidates has reached the point of referencing individuals’ criticisms of the judiciary and the Guardian Council.
In any case, concerns about the future of the republic system began at that time, and now the circle of insiders has become narrower by the day, making entry into the competition arena more difficult. The first effect of this is the people’s despair in determining their fate, and its secondary effect could be the weakening of the government’s foundations due to losing its social base.
Meanwhile, the circle of those warning about this issue has been expanding day by day, and figures who, throughout all these years, especially in 1989, did not resist much regarding the changes in the Guardian Council’s role, have now joined the critics and protesters of this approach.
Mehdi Karroubi and the Prevention of Supervisory Oversight’s Birth
It was in 1991 that following a request from the Guardian Council, an interpretation was made based on which the Guardian Council declared its supervision as supervisory oversight, which also marked the beginning of concern expressed by figures like Mehdi Karroubi, who was the Speaker of the Parliament at the time.
In his memoirs on this subject, published in the book ‘Supervisory Oversight,’ he first mentions instances of conflict between the Guardian Council and the Ministry of Interior in the first decade of the revolution and before Ayatollah Khomeini’s death, referring to the non-supervisory oversight type based on the constitution and its acceptance by various government pillars and the Imam himself. He then points to what happened in the mid-term of the Third Parliament, addressing the birth of supervisory oversight and his efforts as the Speaker of the Parliament and his affiliated organization, the Assembly of Combatant Clerics, to prevent it.
There, Behzad Nabavi, one of the left-wing candidates in the mid-term parliamentary elections, was informed by Fazel Harandi, a member of the executive board, that the Guardian Council had requested Nabavi’s file and, according to him, the Guardian Council had plans for him.
Karroubi, at that time, contacted Hashemi Rafsanjani, the then-President, and raised the issue, saying: ‘This is a sign of a new movement. This has tension and is problematic. Beware that if this happens, it will be the beginning of conflict and disagreement.’
Subsequently, correspondence between the Assembly and the Guardian Council began, and following Karroubi’s phone call with Jannati and Mohammadi Gilani, the issue was resolved.
Two years later, in 1991, before the Fourth Parliament elections, news of purges was heard, and the Guardian Council, in response to Gholamreza Rezvani, a jurist of the Guardian Council who was appointed as the head of the central election monitoring board by this council, announced: ‘Our supervision is supervisory oversight.’
It was at this time that Karroubi, along with Khatami and Seyed Mohammad Mousavi Khoeiniha and Imam Jamarani, went to meet the leadership and raised these issues. In Karroubi’s account, he states: ‘We expressed our concerns, and a meeting was held. He was very attentive and graciously said: ‘If there is a plan for removal, I will intervene.’
‘We will not allow anything against the law to happen. This is not what you are saying.’
March 1991 came, and the removals happened. He says: ‘We took action, met, and tried, but the efforts were to no avail.’
Karroubi later, in 2002, following widespread disqualifications before the Seventh Parliament elections, expressed his protests against this decision by the Guardian Council in a joint statement with Seyed Mohammad Khatami, the then-President, and the Assembly of Combatant Clerics, addressing Ahmad Jannati, the Secretary of the Guardian Council, regarding the widespread disqualifications of reformist candidates, appointment instead of election, and violations in vote counting in the Seventh Parliament elections.
At the same time, when the parliament members were on strike, and the government also protested this disregard for citizens’ rights, rumors about changing the election date and its suspension emerged, but it had no results.
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Unsuccessful in Countering Supervisory Oversight
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, in 1989, when the subject of supervisory oversight by the Guardian Council gradually emerged and established its place in the electoral process, was the President at the time.
In an explanation he wrote in his 1992 diary, he recalls a night in 1992 when Abdullah Nouri, the then-Minister of Interior, came to meet him in the late hours of the third day of Nowruz, presenting him with a list of disqualified individuals. Hashemi used the term ‘injustice in the political scene of the country’ to describe it, protesting to Nouri that the Ministry of Interior is responsible for the executive boards, but Nouri’s response was that the power and pressure of the Guardian Council prevented justice and law from being observed in forming the executive boards, and legal balance was not achieved.
He continues by mentioning the efforts of figures like Seyed Ahmad Khomeini to prevent this type of supervision and qualification review, stating: ‘Some issues were resolved, and most remained unresolved, continuing like a bone in a wound.’
He mentioned Karroubi’s efforts in this area and his meeting with the leadership, stating: ‘I also conveyed his and other individuals’ concerns to the leadership, but they were not ready to provide further assistance. Once the work started, the Guardian Council’s opinion on acceptance or disqualification caused me a lot of trouble.’
Hashemi Rafsanjani, in addition to this period, later also protested against supervisory oversight, not when he himself faced disqualification by the Guardian Council in the 2013 presidential election, but when the news of Hassan Khomeini’s disqualification, the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, in the 2015 Assembly of Experts election was announced, he made a strong protest. At a ceremony held to commemorate the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution and the Imam’s return to the country at Mehrabad Airport’s Terminal 1, he stated: ‘They do not accept the qualification of a character who is most similar to his grandfather, Ayatollah Khomeini. Where did you get your qualification from? Who gave you the authority to judge? Who gave you a platform for the media? If it weren’t for the Imam, the movement, and the people’s general will, none of this would exist. You gave a bad gift to Ayatollah Khomeini’s family, at a time when everyone should be congratulating each other.’
Although he, as one of the close associates of the revolution’s founder, also criticized this issue, his efforts were fruitless, and no change occurred in the Guardian Council’s approach.
Ali Larijani and the Expansion of the Non-Insiders’ Domain
If we were in the 1990s, we would never have believed that one day a figure like Ali Larijani would remain behind the Guardian Council’s barrier. Someone who, in those years, was among the prominent figures of the right-wing faction and, at least during the reformist government years, was considered close to the core of power. If we looked at him from the perspective of a reformist, the idea that he too would one day join the critics of the Guardian Council’s performance would not have crossed our minds. However, this happened in the 2021 elections, and the news of Ali Larijani’s disqualification was announced.
Although at the time, Ayatollah Khamenei criticized the disqualifications in his remarks, saying: ‘The Guardian Council and people on social media have wronged and been unjust to some candidates, and false accusations have been made against them or their families, who are respectable, chaste, and dear. My request and demand from the responsible bodies is to rectify this.’
But these remarks did not change Larijani’s situation in that election. Sadeq Amoli Larijani, his brother, also resigned from the Guardian Council following this incident and, in defense of himself and criticizing the Guardian Council’s performance, engaged in correspondence and demanded the public release of the reasons for his disqualification.
His correspondence eventually led to the publication of images of his disqualification letter on social media on December 18th of the same year, causing widespread reaction. Zabihollah Khodaeian, the spokesperson for the judiciary, stated regarding the release of this confidential letter: ‘Disclosure of classified documents is considered a crime.’
He continued: ‘If it is proven that the letter was released by him, it is prosecutable and should be investigated by intelligence agencies and law enforcement officers.’
Given that the reasons for his disqualification were not convincing for him or public opinion, Larijani gradually moved to the sidelines and distanced himself from the insiders’ circle. Despite the news last year about his potential presence and a list from him in the parliamentary elections, he denied it in a statement, saying: ‘The exclusive report by the extensive Tasnim News Agency about presenting a list in the elections is an example of this phrase: Hassan and Hussein, all three are Muawiyah’s sisters. There is neither talk of an electoral movement nor a nationwide list nor any negotiation with others.’
Therefore, the concern of the purification process is alleviated, and it is unlikely that with this method, brothers can create artificial competition. The country requires another solution.
Thanks to the Guardian Council’s performance, we are now witnessing the narrowing of the range of those accepted to reach even those limited electoral positions. If in the past we heard names like Ebrahim Yazdi from the Freedom Movement as disqualified figures, and we thought the helm was in the right-wing’s hands, these years we are witnessing the disembarkation of Larijanis and Rouhanis from the Islamic Republic’s train.
Of course, maybe if these figures had stood correctly when others were being sidelined, today’s volume of exclusions would not have occurred. And hopefully, the situation will move in a direction where those with power, before things get worse, prevent the continuation of this approach, so perhaps the republic system will be protected from further harm.
