A senior Iranian pro-reform cleric has urged voters in next week’s election to oust hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying his government has failed to improve the economy for the people.
“I will vote in the election and I urge all eligible voters to do the same, to see whether we can change the situation,” Grand Ayatollah Yusef Saanei said at his office in Iran’s clerical nerve-center of Qom.
The interview was conducted in the presence of a Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance official because of the sensitive nature of Saanei’s pro-reformist views.
A disciple of Iran’s revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Saanei held two prominent posts in the early years of the Islamic republic formed by the toppling of the US-backed shah in 1979.
He was one of the six clerics on the powerful Guardians Council, the 12-member body that vets legislation and election candidates. Khomeini also appointed him Iran’s public prosecutor from 1983 until 1986.
“The revolutionary principles of the Imam [Khomeini] still continue, but many features have changed during the ninth government” headed by Ahmadinejad, the Shiite cleric said, toying with a silver-topped walking stick.
“Several skilled managers were sidelined, inflation and unemployment is making the people poorer ... we sold a barrel of oil at US$130, but now we are empty-handed,” he said. “Well, the Imam did not want these issues. He wanted the people’s livelihood to improve. I do not approve of the current situation.”
He also took issue with Ahmadinejad’s foreign policy.
“When we hear President Ahmadinejad criticizing the Saadabad accord, I believe he is wrong, since that accord was impossible without the leader’s consent,” Saanei said referring to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The 2003 Saadabad accord, which Iran under reformist president Mohammad Khatami signed with Britain, France and Germany, resulted in Tehran suspending its sensitive nuclear activities.
During a provincial trip on May 20 to Semnan, his home town, Ahmadinejad called the accord “shameful” and boasted of resuming the suspended nuclear work when he became president in 2005.
“Nuclear policy has nothing to do with the president. It is up to the supreme leader,” Saanei said, shaking his head in disapproval.
Khamenei has the final say on all strategic matters, including nuclear issues.
Saanei is also a critic of Ahmadinejad’s stand on the Holocaust.
The president triggered global outrage soon after taking office in 2005 when he said Israel was “doomed to be wiped off the map,” and in a later diatribe called the Holocaust a “myth.”
On Wednesday, Ahmadinejad fired his latest salvo against the Jewish state, saying the Holocaust was a “big deception.”
“I am against it [Ahmadinejad’s stance]. Our job is not to talk about history. We are not teachers of history. We could have said things differently. We could have said it in a better way,” the visibly upset cleric said.
Saanei refused to reveal who he will vote for on Friday, but ahead of the 2005 election he said he preferred Mir Hossein Mousavi, the ex-prime minister who was not even contesting the presidency then.
Mousavi is standing for the presidency this time, however, and he has emerged as the main challenger to Ahmadinejad.
“I do not support a particular candidate. I only support plans and programs” outlined by them, he said.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS