Political rivalries are intensifying between Iranâ??s fundamentalist ayatollahs and officeholders. Itâ??s a clash between those who wish to hold on to theocracy and those who seek secular, but perhaps no less authoritarian, governance.
Hereâ??s what Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi had to say recently about Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, chief of staff to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:
Mashaei is seeking to prepare the groundwork for his own presidency after Ahmadinejad by spending huge amounts of money in the provincial cities to court people. Mashaei thinks he can become president by drawing on his wealth and position. But if Mashaei runs for office, the first group that will oppose his presidency is the Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom. We wonâ??t let Mashaei become president at any price.
Ayatollah Yazdi is Deputy Chairman of the Assembly of Experts. This conservative Shiite cleric also serves on the 12-member Guardian Council, regularly leads Friday prayer at the capital city of Tehran and directs the influential Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom. He led Iranâ??s judiciary from 1989 to 1999. Yazdi is a close ally of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as well.
In response the executive branchâ??s supporters in Iranâ??s government have been championing nationalism, blocking websites belonging to Yazdi and other fundamentalist ayatollahs, mocking the administrative and political skills of mullahs in general, and labeling the clergy-led crackdown on public behavior as ineffective and unworkable.
So the fragmentation of Iranâ??s revolutionary government continues apace.
