Ahmad Tavakoli: Members of the Assembly of Experts Are Essentially Doing Nothing

Ahmad Tavakoli, a member of parliament, has stated that members of the Assembly of Experts "are essentially doing nothing, but where they need to work, their work is very important." He added that "the composition of the Assembly should be such that young people can also come in." According to a report on February 5, from the "Khabar Parsi" website, Mr. Tavakoli made these remarks at a meeting of political activists and officials of Mohammad Hassan Haeri's electoral campaign, the son of Mohiuddin Haeri Shirazi. This conservative representative, without naming Mohammad Yazdi and Ahmad Khatami, two members of the Assembly's leadership, reacted to their opposition to "youth empowerment in the Assembly" by saying, "the composition of the Assembly should be such that young people can also come in." Tavakoli also emphasized that "members of the Assembly of Experts essentially have no work and do not do anything, but where they need to work, their work is very important." He criticized two perspectives on the Guardianship of the Jurist as "exaggerated" and "disregarding" and called these views "mistaken," stating that "a representative cannot think according to the opinion of the Supreme Leader." According to this parliament member, obedience to the Supreme Leader is in the realm of "action" and not "thought," and "there should not be an image of the Supreme Leader that only one person has wisdom and the rest do not." Tavakoli's statements were a reaction to those supporters of Ali Khamenei who do not tolerate any dissenting opinions against the leader's views and consider opponents or critics of the Supreme Leader's opinions as "anti-revolutionary" and "deviant." Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of the ninth and tenth governments, was among those who, after a disagreement with Ali Khamenei over the first vice-presidency of Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei and the dismissal of Haidar Moslehi from the Ministry of Intelligence, was accused of opposing the Supreme Leader and threatened to resign from his position. Tavakoli referred to a period when Ahmadinejad was on the verge of impeachment for insisting on his positions against the Supreme Leader and the parliament, but the Supreme Leader did not allow his impeachment. Tavakoli is one of the conservative parliament members who stated that in the 2009 elections, due to "emergency conditions," he voted for Ahmadinejad, explaining his decision by saying that "Mousavi had a social base and the power to create social agitation against the leadership, which Ahmadinejad did not have, so I voted for him." This parliament member also referred to the "social power" of Mir Hossein Mousavi against the Supreme Leader in statements made in Ordibehesht 1390 and on January 6 of this year, stating that "Mousavi wanted and was able to stand against the leader." Many conservatives refer to Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi and some other former officials of the Islamic Republic as "seditionists" and "leaders of sedition" due to their protests against the results of the 2009 elections and insistence on annulment of those results. The Guardian Council has also disqualified many candidates for the upcoming elections of the Islamic Consultative Assembly and the Assembly of Experts due to their involvement in the events of that year.