Former IRGC officer and veteran of election campaigns Mohsen Rezaei announced on Twitter that he will be running for President. In the same tweet, he also expressed support for Saeed Mohammad and Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi, two other conservative candidates in this election. Rezaei’s linking of himself to these candidates is part of a strategy to win over their supporters so that they will direct their votes to him in the case that either Mohammad or Ghazizadeh is disqualified.
In a continuation of the division in the IRGC about Saeed Mohammad’s candidacy, Mohsen Rafiqdoust, another IRGC candidate, today said that he did not know Mohammad professionally, but he did know that Mohammad was fired from the Khatam al-Anbiya rather than resigned. Rafiqdoust added that “one of the conditions of the Presidency is to be a political and religious man and he [Mohammad] is neither”. Rafiqdoust has already attacked a number of former IRGC opponents in this campaign.
Controversial candidate Saeed Mohammad said on Sunday that he will stand aside and support senior Principalist Ebrahim Raisi if he chooses to run. In a sign that Mohammad is trying to play down his maverick image and present himself as a team player, he said that he had been in conversations with one of the two main Principalist organisations on the issue, the Unity Council, and was waiting to hear from the other group, the Coalition Council. Regardless, he said that he was committed to a unified platform that would not split the conservative vote. Raisi is the preferred candidate of the Principalists but has resisted nominating himself so far.
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Esteemed political scientist, Prof Sadegh Zibakalam of the University of Tehran, outlined his analysis on the four main Principalist candidates: Ebrahim Raisi, Mohsen Rezaei, Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf and Saeed Jalili. Zibakalam argued that Raisi would be a clear favourite as he is the candidate most likely to win at this stage, however it is not clear if he will accept an invitation from the two prominent Princpalist organisations, the Coalition Council and the Unity Council, to run. In Zibakalam’s view, the Principalist choice is between Raisi and Qalibaf at the moment, and other candidates like Saeed Mohammad, Ali Nikzad, Ezzatollah Zarghami and Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh, stand no chance of being supported by the Principalist bloc. For Saeed Mohammad, the problem is that he is too much like a young Ahmadinejad, and the Principalist camp of 2021 is not going to make the same choice as the did in 2005. However, Zibakalam added that if Raisi does not run, Saeed Mohammad would still pose a threat to whomever the Princpalists chose, effectively splitting the conservative vote.
Dr Abdullah Haji Sadeghi, who represents the #SupremeLeader in the IRGC, today said that "the armed forces do not enter politics in any way" and the task of the IRGC was to protect the revolution and the Islamic system, and make our enemies of aware of that". In what is clearly an attack on #SaeedMohammad, Sadeghi singled out Commander Javani for praise. Javani recently accused Mohammad of being fired from the IRGC for bringing the corps into disrepute. These statements were published in Fars, an IRGC linked newspaper that has so far been hostile to Saeed Mohammad.
Mohammad-Esmail Kowsari, a senior member of the IRGC and advisor to the commander-in-chief, denied that there was a dispute within the Corps over Saeed Mohammad’s candidacy. In reference to conflicting statements made on the issue by prominent IRGC members over the last few days, Kowsari stated that former IRGC members were not barred from running for President, but that there are strict laws, including religious rulings from Ayatollah Khomeini, which would be applied by the Guardian Council when vetting nominees. In other words, Kowsari argued that the matter should be left to the formal process and public disagreements incorrectly give the impression that there is division within the IRGC.
Former IRGC commander, cleric and current governor of Qom, Mohammad-Sadegh Salehimanesh, stated that the sage of Saeed Mohammad’s candidacy is a warning to the Armed Forces about the dangers of military involvement in politics. Salehimanesh argued that the contradictory statements made by Sharif and Javani indicate how political divisions have played out in the IRGC as a result of Mohammad’s nomination. He concluded that the IRGC should focus on its main objective – protecting the country and responding to disasters.
IRGC spokesman Commander Ramazan Sharif criticised his colleague Commander Yadollah Javani for claiming that Saeed Mohammad was dismissed from service for breaking regulations rather than resigning. Sharif stated that Javani may believe that a breach of regulations took place, but this was not the view of the IRGC as an institution. Javani also sought to clarify his comments on Saturday, releasing a statement that said Saeed Mohammad’s alleged dismissal related to “political-electoral behaviour that is contrary to the current regulations of the IRGC”.
Read the interview with Commander Ramazan Sharif on Eghtesad24
Read Commander Yadollah Javani’s statement on Mashregh
Saeed Mohammad’s office issued a statement denying the claims of Commander Yadollah Javani. Yesterday, Javani told the media that Mohammad had been dismissed from the IRGC for misconduct and had not resigned as previously reported. Mohammad’s office added that Javani was not a spokesperson for the IRGC, and that Javani’s statement had been misrepresented by the media.
An IRGC Political Deputy, Commander Yadollah Javani, today stated that Saeed Mohammad was dismissed from his command last month for misconduct. Mohammad, seen as a star candidate, had stated on March 9 that he had resigned his command to run for President, and had been unusually quite since the New Year on March 21. Mohammad’s announcement had drawn criticism from Iranians who believed that it was an intrusion of the IRGC on civilian politics, and this was reflected in Javani’s statement that “the IRGC is strongly opposed to the entry of the Revolutionary Guards into the election arena without going through the defined legal processes and processes”.