NUR
2009-08-14 09:20:16 UTC
DEATH TO THE CHEATER!
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2009/08/iran-ahmadinejad-aide-says-president-only-got-4-million-votes.html
IRAN: Ahmadinejad aide says president only got '4 million' votes
August 13, 2009 | 6:47 am
Iran-mashaei Iranian opposition figures living abroad have long
insisted that the majority of those living in the country were opposed
to the Islamic Republic. They've found an unlikely ally in a top aide
to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, who made
some curious statements to supporters.
According to the hard-line Panjereh weekly, published by the former
head of the hard-line Basiji Students Organization, Mashaei said
Ahmadinejad received only 4 million votes from his supporters in the
June 12 presidential election. In total, Ahmadinejad received about 24
million of the 40 million votes cast in the heavily disputed
election.
"The remaining 20 million [who voted for Ahmadinejad] were in fact
critical of the regime and they are more serious than the 13 million"
who voted for Mousavi, the weekly quoted Mashaei as saying in its
Sunday edition, according to an account on the news website
Ayanadenews.com.
"These 13 million voters only questioned the four-year performance of
Ahmadinejad," he continued. "But the 20 million were critical of all
the years before Ahmadinejad took office."
His comment suggests that Mashaei believes the vast majority of those
who voted for Ahmadinejad rejected the performance of the government
from 1981 to 1989, when Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
was president, as well as the subsequent 16 years, when Khamenei gave
his blessing to the presidencies of Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami.
Mashaei, Ahmadinejad's controversial chief of staff as well as an in-
law, has emerged as Ahmadinejad's Billy Carter, former President
Carter's beer-guzzling brother whose gaffes caused the president
endless grief.
Mashaei enraged conservatives last year when he said Iran was hostile
only toward the Israeli government, not its people. He later disavowed
his remarks, saying they were only meant as "psychological warfare"
against Israel.
Hard-liners demanded that Ahmadinejad dump him as his first vice
president, in line to succeed him as president. After defying them for
weeks, he named him his chief of staff.
But Mashaei's mystical, messianic fervor has also raised eyebrows
among the senior clergy.
In the same interview with Panjereh, Mashaei said that the day of
reckoning when the 12th Shiite Imam, Mahdi, would reappear would soon
be upon us:
"For Imam Mahdi to reappear, everyone on the globe is not required
to covert to Islam. We have concluded that we cannot use religious
literature for the second coming of [Mahdi] because it cannot create
any common language. We have to focus on a literature to be
understandable to all like justice, kindness, monotheism and the fight
against tyranny. We are living in the age of reappearance because we
hear the name of Imam Mahdi everywhere."
-- Borzou Daragahi in Beirut
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2009/08/iran-ahmadinejad-aide-says-president-only-got-4-million-votes.html
IRAN: Ahmadinejad aide says president only got '4 million' votes
August 13, 2009 | 6:47 am
Iran-mashaei Iranian opposition figures living abroad have long
insisted that the majority of those living in the country were opposed
to the Islamic Republic. They've found an unlikely ally in a top aide
to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, who made
some curious statements to supporters.
According to the hard-line Panjereh weekly, published by the former
head of the hard-line Basiji Students Organization, Mashaei said
Ahmadinejad received only 4 million votes from his supporters in the
June 12 presidential election. In total, Ahmadinejad received about 24
million of the 40 million votes cast in the heavily disputed
election.
"The remaining 20 million [who voted for Ahmadinejad] were in fact
critical of the regime and they are more serious than the 13 million"
who voted for Mousavi, the weekly quoted Mashaei as saying in its
Sunday edition, according to an account on the news website
Ayanadenews.com.
"These 13 million voters only questioned the four-year performance of
Ahmadinejad," he continued. "But the 20 million were critical of all
the years before Ahmadinejad took office."
His comment suggests that Mashaei believes the vast majority of those
who voted for Ahmadinejad rejected the performance of the government
from 1981 to 1989, when Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
was president, as well as the subsequent 16 years, when Khamenei gave
his blessing to the presidencies of Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami.
Mashaei, Ahmadinejad's controversial chief of staff as well as an in-
law, has emerged as Ahmadinejad's Billy Carter, former President
Carter's beer-guzzling brother whose gaffes caused the president
endless grief.
Mashaei enraged conservatives last year when he said Iran was hostile
only toward the Israeli government, not its people. He later disavowed
his remarks, saying they were only meant as "psychological warfare"
against Israel.
Hard-liners demanded that Ahmadinejad dump him as his first vice
president, in line to succeed him as president. After defying them for
weeks, he named him his chief of staff.
But Mashaei's mystical, messianic fervor has also raised eyebrows
among the senior clergy.
In the same interview with Panjereh, Mashaei said that the day of
reckoning when the 12th Shiite Imam, Mahdi, would reappear would soon
be upon us:
"For Imam Mahdi to reappear, everyone on the globe is not required
to covert to Islam. We have concluded that we cannot use religious
literature for the second coming of [Mahdi] because it cannot create
any common language. We have to focus on a literature to be
understandable to all like justice, kindness, monotheism and the fight
against tyranny. We are living in the age of reappearance because we
hear the name of Imam Mahdi everywhere."
-- Borzou Daragahi in Beirut