Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has revealed that the Revolutionary Guards’ security chief for Tehran called on him at his house in east-Tehran Monday night, to tell him he was disqualified as a presidential candidate and ask him “to keep silent and cooperate.”
Ahmadinejad had said during and after his registration as a candidate that if he is disqualified, he will not vote in the election, which was seen as a signal to his voters. However, fearing protests by Ahmadinejad’s supporters, Iranian security officials installed security cameras all around his neighborhood during the past week and reports from Tehran said that his house has been surrounded by anti-riot forces from Monday night.
According to Ahmadinejad, the guards’ security chief for Tehran told him that he is “not interested in arresting Ahmadinejad’s supporters who are Hezbollahi and revolutionary individuals.”
Several polls conducted in Iran and abroad indicated that Ahmadinejad could be the frontrunner in the June 18 presidential election if he were allowed by the Guardian Council to run.
The Guardian Council, an appointed body consisting of 6 high-ranking Shiite clerics and 6 lawyers, is a constitutional watchdog that vets parliamentary and presidential election candidates and operates under the supervision of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Reacting to the development, Ahmadinejad published a statement on his official website Dolate Bahar on Tuesday and said that he has told the same to General Hossein Nejat, the Commander of Sarallah Headquarters in charge of security in Tehran. Hours after the publication the page went temporarily off the grid.
Screen shot of a report Wednesday on Ahmadinejad’s website about the IRGC threat.
In the statement, Ahmadinejad said: “The country’s situation is really bad. The economic situation is catastrophic and the social situation is on the verge of collapse.”
Ahmadinejad further charged that infiltrators have penetrated every part of the country. “It is a combination of weakness and treason,” he said, in a veiled reference to multiple incidents against high-valued targets and individuals in the country.
He also reminded General Nejat whose real name is Mohammad Hossein Zibainejad, that a low turnout in election as a result of widespread disqualifications will have major domestic and international repercussions. “The system will fall in a way that it is hard to assume that it can rise once again,” said Ahmadinejad.
“Why should they disqualify me. No one has the right to do that and I would never accept this or remain silent,” Ahmadinejad stressed. He added that the Islamic Republic government and the Rouhani administration are responsible for his disqualification. “They can hardly explain that now but offering an explanation for my disqualification would be much more difficult in the future.”
These were apparently threats and counter-threats exchanged by Nejat and Ahmadinejad, with the former alluding to arrests and the latter making reference to sending his supporters to defend him.
Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad warned that the “current trend” will quickly worsen and the enemies will seize the opportunity to make the regime surrender and give them concessions.
Ahmadinejad charged that as people distance themselves from the regime, some elements in Iran are after disbanding the IRGC, doing away with the Guardian Council and bringing about foreign supervision of elections in Iran while the country is on course for a referendum and regime change.
The former President said that the people of Iran do not expect him to accept oppression and remain silent in the face of injustice and simply watch the destruction of the regime and the revolution as it happens. “The society is on the verge of explosion,” he warned, adding that he cannot ignore people’s demands.
He reiterated that he would not support any candidate and will resist against his disqualification as long as he is alive and those who have disqualified him shall remain responsible for the consequences. However, he said that he would not endorse or support protest movements as a result of his disqualification. “But those who are behind this disqualification should know that this will end in nothing other than the people’s confrontation with them,” Ahmadinejad warned.
Source » iranintl