Akabar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the head of Iran’s Expediency Council, says the establishment must make every effort to rebuild the people’s trust in elections.
According to ISNA , Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani addressed a meeting of the Medical Society of Veteran Physicians, saying: “Falsifying statistics, making false claims and spending money with no justification, as well as using public money to buy people’s votes: none of this will work anymore. Even in some cases when people need the money, they will take it but will still curse [officials] for the persistent social problems.”
“False statistics, making false claims and buying votes” are some of the charges that the opposition brought against Ahmadinejad after the presidential election.
Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani said: “We must make every effort to gain the trust of the people who have lost faith in the elections.”
He added that people will only be convinced by being shown the truth.
Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, considered a top supporter of the reformists, made several efforts to back the opposition’s claim of fraud in the 2009 presidential election. However, his efforts were met with harsh resistance from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who rebuked the moderate cleric for supporting the opposition.
Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani thus became a target of numerous attacks by the establishment and finally was removed from his position as the head of Assembly of Experts, which supervises the Supreme Leadership.
Despite its support for Ahmadinejad in the 2009 presidential elections, Iran’s conservative elite is now accusing him of trying to influence the parliamentary elections scheduled for next March. Parliament has recently appointed a committee to probe government spending and the distribution of money which they claim was aimed at securing votes.
