Khamenei's Representative: The IRGC Has Not Interfered in Elections and Will Not

The representative of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), less than a week after expressing concerns about changes in the composition of the parliament, described the IRGC as an entity "beyond parties" that, according to him, has "not interfered and will not interfere" in elections. According to Fars News Agency, Ali Saidi made these remarks on Tuesday, June 25, in a gathering of clerics working in the IRGC, without providing further explanation about his statements. Meanwhile, according to IRNA, Mr. Saidi also described the IRGC as "a principlist, Hezbollah-oriented, and velayat-oriented institution, beyond other parties and groups." According to Mehr News Agency, in his remarks on Tuesday, Ali Saidi urged voters to vote for "the faithful" and added that "the revolution will not fall into the hands of the unworthy if the parliament representative is faithful and revolutionary." On Wednesday, June 19, Mr. Saidi had described the change of the principlist parliament to "another parliament" as a "threat" to what he called the "interests of the system" and also to the "ideals" of Ayatollah Khomeini and Ayatollah Khamenei. Mr. Saidi's statements come ahead of the tenth parliamentary elections, while in 2012, following the ninth parliamentary elections, several representatives from the eighth parliament, including Ali Motahari and Mostafa Kavakebian, accused the IRGC of attempting to send their preferred candidates to parliament. IRGC commanders have denied Mr. Motahari's accusations. Nevertheless, the representative of the Supreme Leader in the IRGC had stated on January 9, 2013, that "the inherent duty of the IRGC is to logically and reasonably engineer elections." These remarks sparked widespread protests, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the then President of Iran, stated on January 20, 2013, that "whoever wants to manage the people will be managed by the people." Protesters against the results of the 2009 presidential election also considered the release of videos of speeches by Mohammad Ali Jafari, the IRGC's commander-in-chief in June 2014, as further evidence of what they called "fraud" in that election. The Expediency Discernment Council of Iran, on Saturday, February 14, 2015, while reviewing "general policies for elections," issued a resolution prohibiting the involvement of armed forces and intelligence and security agencies in "political and factional classifications in elections and supporting specific candidates." These policies must be approved by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, after being ratified by this council. The Guardian Council of Iran has set March 7, 2016, as the date for the upcoming elections for the Islamic Consultative Assembly and the Assembly of Experts. Meanwhile, it has recently been announced that the IRGC, along with other institutions, is monitoring the virtual space to establish "election security." "The enemy's goal in proxy wars in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq was Iran," the representative of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic mentioned in another part of his remarks, referring to what he called "proxy wars" and the "creation of three fake Islams by the enemy" as "two threats" to the Islamic Republic. Mr. Saidi stated: "One is Takfiri Islam, the other is secular Islam, which Turkey and Erdogan promote, and the third is extremist Shiism or London-based Shiism, which figures like Sadiq Shirazi promote, insulting the sanctities of Sunnis and promoting neutral mourning." He added: "The enemy's goal in proxy wars in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq was Iran, which they failed to achieve with the wisdom of leadership." Mr. Saidi emphasized: "America has tried to incapacitate the armies of several countries like Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Egypt in the region, thereby creating a buffer for Israel to be safe today." Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, in a strongly worded speech on Wednesday, May 20, warned that if "enemies" bring proxy wars "to the borders of Iran," Tehran's response will be "very harsh." Iran and Arab and Sunni countries in the Persian Gulf have long been engaged in fierce competition over the internal war in Syria and Yemen, which some media and analysts refer to as a "proxy war."