The Latest from Iran (22 December): Tangoing Towards the Elections

Nikahang Kowsar on Ahmadinejad and the "dollar snake" of the currency crisis

See also Iran Analysis: The Supreme Leader is Looking for A Few Good Reformists
Iran Snap Analysis: The Currency Falls --- What Does It Mean?
The Latest from Iran (21 December): It's The Economy, Mahmoud

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1831 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. The President might have declared this week that the Iranian economy is one of prosperity and growth, which all countries wish to emulate, but that does not mean that he is not on the lookout for some sacrifices. In a speech in east Tehran, he asked wealthy citizens to renounce their support payments for subsidy cuts. Meanwhile, he promised that the Government would ensure each family had a car.

Ahmadinejad did not say whether his request for deferred support payments is connected to reports that the Government is running a large deficit in the subsidy cuts programme.

1822 GMT: CyberWatch. IUS News, a website of hard-line Iranian students, reportedly knocked off-line earlier today, is unavailable.

1815 GMT: Loyalty Watch. Hojatoleslam Alireza Panahian makes a good effort at Loyalty Declaration of the Day when he says the Supreme Leader is a distinguished Islamic thinker. He is outshone, however, by Hojatoleslam Kazem Sediqi, one of the Tehran Friday Prayer leaders, who declares that Ayatollah Khamenei smells like Imam Hussein, Shia's third Imam.

An EA correspondent uncharitably notes that Imam Hussein was murdered.

1335 GMT: Elections Watch. The leading reformist party Islamic Iran Participation Front has announced it will not be involved in March's Parliamentary elections.

The party, along with the Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution, was suspended last year by the Iranian courts.

1330 GMT: Economy Watch. Mehr offers details on the story of the walkout of some MPs from Wednesday's closed session of Parliament over the economic situation (see 1015 GMT).

The legislators were unhappy with the replies of Central Bank head Mahmoud Bahmani and Minister of Economy Shamseddin Hosseini. An EA source said MPs were upset over Bahmani's response to questions about the qualifications of his deputy.

1230 GMT: Currency Watch. An EA correspondent checks in to explain the apparent recovery of the Iranian rial vs. the US dollar this morning (see 1005 GMT).

Our correspondent explains that, in one respect, the improvement --- from 15350:1 to 14400:1 --- is cosmetic as Iran's foreign exchanges are closed for the "weekend" of Thursday/Friday. Even more importantly, he says that Mahmoud Bahmani, the head of the Central Bank, told Parliament in closed session on Wednesday that the Bank would be injecting US dollars into the open market.

That injection, by raising the supply of dollars, is a front-line step in trying to strengthen the Iranian currency. The Central Bank last tried the measure in September, seeking to keep the rate below 13000:1.

1220 GMT: Rafsanjani v. Ahmadinejad Watch (cont.). An EA source reports a victory for former President Hashemi Rafsanjani in the current political contest with the Ahmadinejad Government --- Rafsanjani has been named head of a charity for the Islamic Azad University.

The Islamic Azad University, Iran's largest private chain of campuses, was created by the Rafsanjani Government in the 1990s, but the former President's control has been challenged by Ahmadinejad in recent years.

1200 GMT: Rafsanjani v. Ahmadinejad Watch. Developments in the clash between the former and current Presidents of Iran....

Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, speaking to students of the Open University, has declared, "Many times I have answered critics who have attacked me and my family. Enough with these attacks."

He continued, however, that he had little hope that there would be a pause: "My critics pretend to be asleep. They have a duty to criticise me for political reasons."

While Rafsanjani did not name who was giving his critics their "duty", he was clearly responding to President Ahmadinejad, who had launched an attack in a speech in Varamin earlier this week, "Some people have been meeting against my Government." Ahmadinejad asked, since Iran's economic situation was very good, "Why did some people attack the Government over economy policy? There is a plan to destroy the Government's service to the people."

An EA correspondent explains that, in an example of the challenge to Rafsanjani, the Governor of Oroumiyeh Province said that it was necessary to control the behaviour of the former President and his family. He called the behaviour of Rafsanjani's daughter Faezeh, a women's rights activist and critic of the regime, "very strange" and "not revolutionary".

The Governor then alleged that Rafsanjani was hiding behind his family to control the "sedition current".

1015 GMT: Economy Watch. Khabar Online has been paying careful attention to Wednesday's closed-door session of Parliament on the economic situation, including discussion of the currency crisis, subsidy cuts, and sanctions. The website, linked to Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, posted the claim that the head of the Central Bank, Mahmoud Bahmani, might be in danger of losing his post because he could not answer questions and offered an evaluation of the positions of individual legislators.

However, in the last few minutes, a curious development on the site. Khabar had reported that some MPs walked out of Wednesday's session in protest, but the item has disappeared. And it seems that this follows a clash on Wednesday morning, when the website was suspended for several hours after it published an earlier item on Bahmani and the Parliamentary discussion.

1005 GMT: Currency Watch. After its sharp drop in recent days, losing 10% in value vs. the US dollar, the Iranian rial has recovered today from 15350:1 to 14400:1 on the open market.

The reason for the small bounce-back, and whether it will be long-term, are unclear. The Central Bank reportedly intervened on Wednesday, closing some foreign exchanges, to halt the slide of the rial.

0949 GMT: Foreign Affairs Watch (Syrian Front). Press TV is absorbed by Wednesday's news of the abduction of five Iranians among eight engineers seized in Homs in Syria, devoting three of its top four Iran stories to the episode. The regime line, put out by the Iranian Ambassador to Damascus, Mohammad Reza Raouf Sheibani, is that the kidnapping is a bullying of Tehran to change its position on the Syrian political conflict.

0943 GMT: Tough Talk of the Day. The head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, General Mohammad Ali Jafari, has declared Iran's victory over a decade of assaults by its foes: “In the 1380s [2001-2011], the enemies attempted to launch a military action against us by completing [a process of] surrounding Iran and preparing their desired conditions inside the country....For various reasons, including Iran's missile power, their (the enemies) plans failed.”

Jafari explained that Tehran has been at the heart of American efforts: “The United States dispatched troops to Afghanistan and Iraq under various excuses, but their main goal was to confront the Islamic Iran." The US had been defeated, however, because of the nation's trust in the Islamic establishment and the capabilities of the armed forces.

0940 GMT: We have now posted our special analysis about the political manoeuvring ahead of the March elections, "The Supreme Leader is Looking for A Few Good Reformists".

0720 GMT: The dance for Iran's Parliamentary elections, still 10 weeks away, is offering some intricate moves and unlikely partners.

We are seeing President Ahmadinejad's pre-election campaigning for his candidates, through his touring of the province, and speculation that the currency crisis may be linked to the politics, with would-be MPs and their supporters using the gap between the official and free-market rates to build up the campaign funds. 

And we have the emergence --- some might dare call it ironic, given the Supreme Leader's moves after the 2009 Presidential election to sweep away political opposition --- of a courtship of reformists by Ayatollah Khamenei's men. We noted a couple of the steps yesterday, with speeches by Gholam-Hossein Haddad Adel and Morteza Nabavi calling on the reformists to participate in the elections, and we will have more in a separate feature today.

But will the reformists accept the invitation to dance? Former President Mohammad Khatami and other leading reformists, such as Ayatollah Mousavi Khoeiniha,  are still trying the intricate choreography of no candidates but also no boycott of the vote. 

Others are not so coy. We have already noted that the opposition Coordinating Council of Green Hope has rejected any involvement, and 39 prominent political prisoners have now issued a statement calling for a full boycott, declaring that the vote bears no similarity to free elections in other nations and that it is run by the military and intelligence forces. Any participation, they contend, only helps consolidate hard-line rule and undermines democracy, respect for human rights, and the Revolution's declared goals of , independence and freedom.

The signatories include journalists Bahman Ahmadi Amooee, Masoud Bastani, Eisa Sahatkhiz, Mohammad Davari, Dr. Alireza Rajaei, Keyvan Samimi, and Mehdi Mahmoudian; university activists Hassan Asadi Zeidabadi, Saeed Jalalifar, Ali Jamali, Zia Nabavi, Abdollah Momeni, Ali Malihi, and Fashad Ghorbanpour; major reformist figures Dr. Davood Soleimani, Javad Emam, former Deputy Foreign Minister Dr. Mohsen Aminzadeh, Mir Hossein Mousavi's aide Seyyed Alireza Beheshti Shirazi, former Deputy Interior Minister Mostafa Tajzadeh, former Deputy Prime Minister Behzad Nabavi, Abolfazl Ghadiani (Iran's oldest political prisoner) and Feyzollah Arabsorkhi; nationalist-religious figures Emad Bahavar, Amir Khorram, and Amir Khosrow Dalirsani; and attorneys Mohammad Seifzadeh and Ghasem Sholeh Saad