WHITHER THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC?

  مطهری: آیت‌الله خمینی هم اگر ثبت‌نام می‌کرد، رد صلاحیت می‌شد

Ali Motahhari, a conservative member of the majlis, was one of the supporters of Rafsanjani's candidacy. After the Guardian Council disqualified Rafsanjani, in a scathing open letter, he accused the Council of playing politics with their constitutional power. In the letter he stated: "Had Ayatollah Khomeini registered for the presidency, he would have been disqualified!"

One of the key elements that has sustained the Islamic Republic since its establishment in 1979 has been the diversity of its political elite. In the short history of the republic, presidential elections have always manifested this diversity and turned the election into an arena of political struggle between factions with deep disagreements about the future direction of the country. For that very reason, it has always been difficult to speak of the Islamic Republic as “a regime” with a uniform and unified polity. The very “regimehood” (if there is such a word) of the Islamic Republic has always been contested from within.

Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, also wrote an open letter expressing
his disbelief regarding the Guardian Council's rejection of Rafsanjani's candidacy.
By and large, Ayatollah Khomeini's descendants ally themselves with the reformists.

 Although there always existed a hegemonic conception of what the Islamic Republic was all about, that hegemony was never absolute or as dominant as it might appear from the outside. From the very meaning of the Guardianship of the Jurist (velāyat-e faqih) to the relation between Islam and governance, from the scope and function of democratic institutions to their relationship with the power of religious authorities, from the significance of constitutional law to the authority of Islamic shari’a, all were topics of heated debates and contestations rather than foundations of governance in Iran.

That is why the Iranian revolution has never seemed settled and has taken a meandering path toward institutionalization. Now it seems like a major turning point is in the making. Under the leadership of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, by eliminating the reformist elements, the Islamic Republic is taking the first steps toward uniformity.

خواهشمند است دخالت فرمایید و نشان دهید 

ولایت فقیه می خواهد جلوی دیکتاتوری را بگیرد

Dr. Zahra Mostafavi, Ayatollah Khomeini's daughter, also wrote an open letter to the Supreme Leader:
"Please intervene and show that the velāyat-e fagih intends to stop dictatorship!"
She further claimed in the same letter that Khomeini believed that Rafsanjani
was the most qualified to become the Supreme Leader. 

 The Guardian Council’s disqualification of Ayatollah Rafsanjani, the man whose current responsibility as the Head of the Expediency Council is to determine what is right and what is wrong for the existing Islamic order, is an interesting paradox. Many commentators in Tehran and abroad have highlighted the fact that the Council’s daring move in effect questions the legitimacy of the system. Despite its autocratic system of governance, the Islamic Republic has also relied and depended on its legitimacy as a sovereign state.  Its leaders always emphasized the high participation in electoral process as the evidence of its popularity. They always boasted that they have found the solution to what the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas calls “motivational deficit” and the ambivalence of the electorate in liberal democracies. That there is a cultural and ideological connection between the masses and the state.

Now we have to wait and see this time how the Iranian electorate will respond to a presidential election in which for the first time since the revolution the big absent is a genuine competition.