It took more than 50 days before the podium of Tehran’s Friday prayer to echo the voice of Ayatollah Hashemi-Rafsanjani for the Iranian nation. During this time a series of events occurred in the 30-year history of the Islamic Republic of Iran, that were arguably rare if not unique; a series of events that their aftershocks have penetrated to the depths of domestic and foreign policies and have involved all the political players.
But why is this week’s Friday prayer, that Ayatollah Hashemi-Rafsanjani is going to deliver, important? To answer these questions one should turn back the clock to the night that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in the stature of a presidential candidate to defeat his rival Mir Hossein Mousavi and for the first time, charged the chairman of the Assembly of Experts and the head of the Expediency Council with heavy accusations. Also four years ago, in the second round of the ninth presidential election, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the main rival of Mr. Hashemi and defeated him. This time also he tried to portrait his stature not in competition with Mousavi, Karoubi and Rezaei but in competition with Hashemi-Rafsanjani; and by mentioning his name on the national media and for more than 50 million viewers tried to change the competition atmosphere.
Although after that debate people were waiting for Hashemi’s quick reaction to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s remarks, the chairman of the Assembly of Experts remained silent. However the media affiliated with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the form of various subjects recreated the same atmosphere in different ways. For example, Hossein Shariatmadari on the last Wednesday before the election wrote an article titled “A candle that was blown off....” which the whole article was not aimed at anyone but Hashemi-Rafsanjani.
This article was published on the [same] day that Hashemi-Rafsanjani had complained relentlessly about the behaviour of the ninth president by writing an open letter to the Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei). In a part of his letter, Hashemi had described the reason for his silence in front of Ahmadinejad’s positions as such: “In order to avoid tainting the country’s political atmosphere with more apprehensions in the eve of the election, I have refused to show the immediate reaction expected by the people.” In continuation of the letter, a few paragraphs later Hashemi writes as such: “Of course in the appropriate time the deviations and the untold injustice of the election and the actions of the ninth administration will be available to the public and for the history”.
After writing and publishing this letter no other political or electoral position from the chair of the Assembly of Experts was reported. Of course this was when the announcement of election results had entered the country in to a new phase. During this time that the protests, according to the authorities, had left 20 killed and more than a thousand arrested, Hashemi-Rafsanjani was still insisting on his silent position. Even when Faeze Hashemi, his daughter, and four other members of his family were detained for one night during the Tehran’s unrest, he was still silent. Hashemi-Rafsanjani’s meaningful silence along with his long-term absence from the Friday prayer has increased the speculations regarding Hashemi’s position. Now that it is Ayatollah Hashemi-Rafsanjani’s turn to deliver the Friday prayer’s sermon, both parties are waiting to see what the content of his sermon would be.
On one side, the supports of the administration have already started to demand their requests from Hashemi-Rafsanjani and are insisting that Hashemi takes a position coordinated with theirs. Accordingly “Raja-news”, the website close to the administration, has published a letter said to be from a group of students from Tehran University in the form of three suggestions. In this letter it was demanded from Hashemi to support “the administration risen from the will of people”. In another part of this letter it was demanded from Hashemi to dishonour what the authors describe as the movement of “division”, which is hiding itself behind the name and history of the chairman of the Assembly of Experts, and by taking clear position to expose the complex hypocrisy of the division.
However on the other side, there have only been calls for vast presence [of people] at the Friday prayer.
Supporters of Mousavi, Karoubi and Khatami are encouraging each other to attend Hashemi’s sermon at the Friday prayer, by sending and publishing group invitations. Encouraging the supporters of the candidates protesting the election result to attend this week’s Friday prayer has this message to Hashemi-Rafsanjani that he expresses positions that have not yet been heard by the protesters from the official podiums to calm their pain. They expect that the chairman of the Assembly of Experts and the head of the Expediency Council to express position that both help maintain peace in the society and recognize their protest. Although predicting Ayatollah Hashemi-Rafsanjani’s positions will be the focus of political associations until delivering his sermon, no one knows what will happen in this week’s Friday prayer. Will he provide, as he wrote in his letter dated 19 khordad (June 9th), the deviations and the untold injustice of the election and the actions of the ninth administration to the public and for the history?
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