President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has denounced as unjust the disqualification of his top aide from next month’s presidential election and says he plans to appeal to Iran’s supreme ruler. Ahmadinejad spoke a day after the Guardian Council, which vets candidates, barred the out-going president’s confidant, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, from the June 14 poll along with former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the nation’s most illustrious political figures. Tuesday’s decisions enraged the pair’s many supporters and threatened to deflate turnout. Mashaei was “unjustly treated,” the president told reporters, according to the conservative Fars News Agency. “I have presented … Mashaei as a righteous and religious person who could be useful for the country.”
The president said he hoped that Iran’s supreme leader,Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would reverse the decision of the Guardian Council, a 12-member body of senior clerics and jurists.
Rafsanjani’s supporters expressed similar hopes for their candidate. But Rafsanjani’s camp has said he would not file a formal appeal.
The 78-year-old ex-president was one of the pillars of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But detractors have accused him of “sedition” because of his criticism of the crackdown against protesters after the last presidential poll in 2009. Ahmadinejad was elected to a second and final term amid widespread allegations of vote-rigging and mass demonstrations.
Rafsanjani’s prospective candidacy had galvanized reformists eager to end Iran’s diplomatic isolation and help improve its plummeting economy, battered by Western-led sanctions. His disqualification left many disillusioned and saying they may not vote.
Full Article: Ahmadinejad protests aides disqualification from Iran election – latimes.com.