The LA Times is reporting on the statement from Rasanjani’s Kargozaran Party about the recent elections in Iran.
“We declare that the result is unacceptable due to the unhealthy voting process, massive electoral fraud and the siding of the majority of the Guardian Council with a specific candidate,” the party’s statement said.
Rafsanjani’s party wasn’t the only one making statements about the elections:
The Revolutionary Guard, the elite, ideologically driven military branch that formally answers to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made its clearest statement yet about taking over the nation’s security apparatus.
“Because the Revolutionary Guard was assigned the task of controlling the situation, [it] took the initiative to quell a spiraling unrest,” Maj. Gen. Mohammed Ali Jafari, commander of the elite military branch, said at the news conference. “This event pushed us into a new phase of the revolution and political struggles, and we have to understand all its dimensions.”
The past few weeks have made clear so many of the cracks in Iran’s system. It has also made clear just how much power the Revolutionary Guard has and how clever they are about using that power:
If this continues, Iran may be heading to a much more militarized system of politics,” said Alireza Nader, an Iran specialist at the Rand Corp. “Before, there was give-and-take not only between the political institutions, but also the security organs. Now it looks like the [Revolutionary Guard] dominates all, even perhaps the Ministry of Intelligence.”
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