Control by Principlists Will Result in the Devastation of the Country

Roozonline

Even with its relatively small number of cadre, the Steadfast Front (a grouping of several hardline conservative ideologues) which has thrown the most obstacles at Hassan Rouhani’s administration in the last year, is now working parliamentary politics to confront the measures of the administration. Its latest games are over the selection of a representative from the legislative branch for the country’s Media Supervision Board. The Front insists that Hamid Rasai should be sent while Rouhani’s allies are pushing for Ali Motahari. The result of this battle will determine whether more or less pressure will be exerted on the country’s press.

Observers have said that because of their political views and the irrefutable links to the years known as the “Ahmadinejad devastation period” the member groups of the Steadfast Front are unlikely to remain together and united as a conservative group in the upcoming Majlis elections. Some reformists point to Ahmad Janati, the current secretary of the Guardians Council and his views and speculate that a smaller faction of the Steadfast members may manage to remain and play a significant role in the next Majlis.

Three days after the battles between the majority faction of the Majlis with the Steadfast members in the Cultural Committee, which is dominated by Steadfast members, interviews and media pressures indicated that the Front, with the support of some regressive groups, insisted on sending hardline Tehran Representative Hamid Rasai to the Press Supervisory Board, instead of Ali Motahari, the other Tehran representative in the legislature.

Observers have said that the Steadfast Front which has a majority in three Majlis committees (that of higher education, culture and article 90 of the constitution) controls all the activities in social and media affairs and through these forums exerts its pressure and influence for maximizing the list of conservatives for the next Majlis.

Media affiliated to the administration and Ali Motahari have warned about this Steadfast “gang” which led Majlis chief Ali Larijani to postpone introducing a new parliamentary representative to the Press Supervisory Board.

Commenting on this issue, Entekhab website wrote, “The Cultural Committee of the Majlis presented two candidates to the full house of the Majlis to vote to determine who would be the legislative’s representative in the Press Supervisory Board which pinned the two Majlis factions against each other. Of the five candidates to the Board – Ali Motahari, Javad Heravi, Hassan Kamran, Hamid Rasai, and Mahmoud Nabavian – the Cultural Committee of the Majlis introduced Tehran representatives Nabavian and Rasai to the full house as alternate members in the Press Committee.” The story continued, “Nabavian is a student of Mesbah Yazdi, an ultra-conservative cleric and mentor of the Steadfast group that supported former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Rasai is among the most hardline representatives of the Majlis who until very recently was a member of the Steadfast Front but left it because of his differences with some of the other members and factions. Some Majlis representatives protested the selection of Rasai who called the act political. Even Ali Motahari said that Rasai and Nabavian would be representing the Steadfast Front in the Press Board rather than representing the Majlis.”

According to Iran’s ISNA student news agency, Ali Motahari had revealed two days earlier the activities of the Steadfast front and its secret goal of taking over the control of the Press Board and said, “The legislative branch has one representative in the Press Supervision Board, the Majlis Cultural Committee should introduce at least two individuals to the full house to vote on. The committee introduced Rasai and Nabavian. The committee itself has twelve members of which at least eight are members of the Steadfast Front. What the Committee did was not unlawful but unprofessionally unethical. It should not have misused its majority which rests in the Steadfast Front to pressure the Majlis and limit its choice which would happen if it had to vote either for Rasai or Nabavian, both of whom have the same political affiliation. If things proceed the way they are now, the selected representative will represent the Steadfast Front in the Press Supervisory Board and not the legislative branch.”

In the internal voting that took place in the Cultural Committee, Rasai got eight votes, Nabavian got six, and Motahari got five.

Because of his criticism of the administration during Ahmadinejad’s presidency, Motahari has been criticized and attacked by members of the Steadfast Front and the Principlist group.

Members of the Steadfast group strongly object to Majlis chief Larijani’s decision to postpone the Majlis full house vote on selecting a representative to the Press Board. Some websites belonging to the Principlists wrote articles against Larijani. A website belonging to Mehdi Kootchakzadeh for example wrote articles against both Larijani and Motahari.

But the editor of the oldest Principlist newspaper in the Islamic republic, the Jomhurie Eslami (Islamic Revolution) Masih Mohajerani strongly criticized the Steadfsast Front for striving to take control of the Press Board. He told Khabar Online, “The presence of an extremists as the representative of the legislative branch in the Press Supervisory Board is an insult to the press. This is how they want to control the media now that they have lost a say in the new government. But an independent person must represent the Majlis in the Board. If the extremists take control of the country, then the country will see nothing but devastation. People did not vote for these extremists and removed them from the government.”

The Press Supervisory Board which sits at the Ministry of Islamic Guidance is constitutionally responsible for supervising press activities. It has the authority to ban a publication as it also has the power to issue licenses for press applications.

by Nazanin Kamdar