Montazeri warns of taking away authority of elected offices
Published: Sunday, November 16, 2008
11:30GMT--6:30AM/EST
MONTAZERI – TAHKIM-e VAHDAT - NOURI
Washington, 16 November (IranVNC)—Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Hosseinali Montazeri, a Shiite Source of Emulation [Marja’-e Taqlid], in a meeting with the members of the central committee of Iran’s student alumni association [Advar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat], in the holy city of Qom yesterday, warned against taking away the authority of elected offices in the Islamic Republic, and the complete control of the supreme leader over these institutions.
According to the website of the alumni association, Advar News, Montazeri reminded that the president of the Islamic Republic must be someone who has independent views and is capable of holding his stand, and went on to name Abdollah Nouri as a “righteous person”, and said that should the pro-reform groups manage to unite on the choice of one candidate, the Guardian Council, which decides over the qualification of candidates, would not be able to reject the candidate of their choice.
According to the same source, Ayatollah Montazeri, next went on to attack the Assembly of Experts, criticized the lack of fulfilling the proper legal status of elected institutions in the Islamic Republic and said the leader, according to law, is accountable to the Assembly of Experts and its chairman.
This dissident clergyman, who was once designated successor to the late leader of Iran’s revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, fell foul of the latter and was replaced because of his criticisms of human rights abuses by government.
In his meeting yesterday, Montazeri also criticized the former two-term pro-reform president, Mohammad Khatami, over his remarks that “Our goal is for the supreme leader to be at the zenith of glory.”
Montazeri said that the aim should instead be the glory of the people and the progress of the country and security of the rights of the nation.
“During Mohammad Khatami’s tenure as president I had on many occasions warned him about his inability to speak independently, and in a letter told him that he must rely on the votes of 22 million people and say that if I should not have the authority to choose my own ministers and ambassadors and provincial governors, then, farewell. The president must be someone who takes decisions by himself,” Montazeri said.
Montazeri had written a letter to Khatami on 20 Mordad 1383 [10 August 2004], in which he had criticized Khatami’s eight-year tenure as president, saying that Khatami had accepted having decisions and policies imposed on him and had legitimized and given a new political life to those who were not satisfied with anything less than his annihilation.
Ayatollah Montazeri, during this meeting, went on to declare his approval of the candidacy of Abdollah Nouri, Khatami-administration’s interior minister, who was sacked by the principle-ist majority of the fifth Majlis [parliament]. Montazeri, however, said that Nouri’s biggest obstacle remains getting past Iran’s electoral watchdog, the Guardian Council. The solution to this dilemma, he said at the end, would be a coalition of all pro-reform groups behind Abdollah Nouri.
Montazeri continued by saying that the disunity of the pro-reform groups would lead to their defeat, followed by apathy on the part of the people; and that this apathy would ultimately lead to the empowerment of a group of “evil persons”.
This Shiite scholar, who was under house arrest for five years from 1998 until 2003 for his criticism of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during this year’s Iftar ceremonies [breaking fast on the last day of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan] strongly criticized current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech at the UN General Assembly this year, where he said that “Iran is the freest country in the world.”
The publication of the text of Montazeri’s criticism of Ahmadinejad led to the arrest of his press secretary, Hojjatoleslam Mojtaba Lotfi, on 8 October of this year.
Sources: Advar News, Roozonlin, Fararu, The second volume of the book, Views of Ayatollah Montazeri.
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