Special to WorldTribune.com

By Fariborz Saremi

It has been assumed for quite some time that next month’s presidential election in Iran will be an exceptionally contentious affair, but since May 11, the last day on which presidential candidates could register their intention to run for election, it has finally become clear who the main rivals will be.

All the top figures from major rival camps have entered the race. These are headed by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president, seen by many to be the favorite of reformers and the Iranian Middle Class, and his chief opponent Esfandir Rahim Mashaei, a close ally of the current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and a dedicated hardliner.

Although over 680 candidates, including over twenty women, have registered for the election, the final say over who is allowed to stand rests with Iran’s Guardian Council consisting of six clergymen and six jurists and controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Only a handful candidates are expected to be allowed to run in the June 14 vote.

Khamenei as the most powerful political figure in Iran occupies a central position in the election.

Despite the fact that Rafsanjani, 79, played a key role in Khamenei’s appointment as the Supreme Leader after the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, died in 1989, the two have been on a confrontation course ever since Rafsanjani lost the 2005 presidential election to Ahmadinejad.

This was most apparent during the 2009 election when Khamenei actively supported Ahmadinejad against Rafsanjani, who tentatively sided with the Opposition Green Movement.

Moreover, the election was the subject of some controversy since many claimed that Ahmadinejad’s victory was rigged and that Rafsanjani’s son, Mehdi Hashemi, had financially supported branches and off shoots of the Iranian Opposition in Exile while living in London.

Although Rafsanjani has lost a lot of authority as a result of his rivalry with Khamenei he is one of Iran’s great political survivors. It is assumed that his credentials as a reformer have provided him with a power base among reformist admirers of the Green Movement and among clerics.

His weakness is that the Green Movement rejects the legitimacy of the election. This is because Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, presidential candidates from the previous vote in 2009, have been under house arrest ever since. Moreover, the last election resulted in months of unrest and bloodshed.

However, reformists have not gone so far as to call for a boycott of the election and appear to favor Rafsanjani. In contrast the opposition in exile, especially the MEK and the newly organized National Council of Iran (NCI), made it clear they are are boycotting the elections.

Khamenei has strong ties to other candidates. These include Teheran’s mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf in coalition with Ali Akbar Velayati a senior advisor to Khamenei and Gholam Ali Hadad Adel, close relative to Khamenei and former parliamentary speaker, plus Saeed Jalili, chief nuclear negotiator.

Mashaei, who is thought to be Ahmadinejad’s choice as his successor, is loathed by Khamenei’s supporters. Although he maintains completely different allegiances to Rafsanjani, both are despised for allegedly attempting to undermine Khamenei’s power.

Many fear that Mashaei, who was accompanied by Ahmadinejad when he put his name forward for the June 14 ballot, is simply part of a plan for a Putin/Medvedev-style power grab by Ahmadinejad.

Dr Fariborz Saremi is a strategic analyst based in Hamburg/Germany and a regular contributor for World Tribune.com, Freepressers.com and Defense&Foreign Affairs.

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