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Rafsanjani Watch

Another twist in the "Will he run? Won't he run?" story of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani....

Rafsanjani ally Hassan Rohani, who is also a Presidential hopeful, has declared, “Mr. Hashemi [Rafsanjani] will definitely not be a candidate in the upcoming election."

Rohani, who is an official with the Expediency Council that Rafsanjani chairs, has been considered the choice of the former President's camp. However, in the last week Rafsanjani has indicated --- see separate EA Exclusive --- that he might stand.

Rohani also dismissed speculation that he might quit the race in favor of Rafsanjani.

Rafsanjani Watch

Alef, a website is affiliated to hard-line MP Ahmad Tavakkoli, reports that Ali Akbar Velayati, the advisor to the Supreme Leader on international affairs, said that although former president Hashemi Rafsanjani "played a role in the sedition of 88, [the popular protests after the disputed 2009 election], we have to respect him."

Velayati spoke in a weekly meeting with Ansar-e- Hezbollah.

Baztab Update

Opposition website Rah-e Sabz reports a reason for the filtering of the Reformist Baztab website (see earlier entry). Rah-e Sabz Baztab has been taken offline because of an article saying that Ahmadinejad was aware of the fraud in the 2009 election and has a tape about it which he wants to give it out after election.

Filtering Watch

Baztab, a site supporting former president Rafsanjani and critical of the government, is down this morning (0735 GMT), citing "technical difficulties". Baztab has been filtered in the past, including earlier this year, allegedly for allowing comments critical of the Supreme Leader.

Election Watch

A prominent Iranian diplomat with ties to reformists was briefly arrested in Tehran in March, according to Reuters.

Sources told Reuters that Bagher Asadi, a former senior diplomat at Iran's U.N. mission in New York and most recently posted to the secretariat of the D8 group of developing nations in Istanbul, was arrested in mid-March, possibly as part of a crackdown ahead of the June Presidential election.

Election Watch

On the surface, the headlines from State outlet Press TV are upbeat, proclaiming, "Iranian Presidential Hopefuls Detail Agendas", and announcing new aspirants such as former Vice President Sadeq Vaez-Zadeh.

Scratch that surface, however, and you get a far more interesting story, albeit one less comfortable for the highest levels of the regime.

With less than a week before formal declarations of candidacy, the Supreme Leader appears to have failed to establish a "unity" candidate for an orderly "victory" in June's ballot.

Two incidents were particularly notable on Tuesday.

The Supreme Leader's relative and leading MP Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel signaled that he might stand for President, announcing a campaign manager.

The complication is that Haddad-Adel is a member of the Supreme Leader's "2+1 Committee" which has been working since January to get the "unity" candidate. So is the MP implicitly saying he is the man who has chosen or, frustrated by the Committee's failure, has he indicated that he is breaking away with a unilateral campaign?

Then there is the escalating story of Hashemi Rafsanjani, President from 1989 to 1997 and still a prominent figure in the regime.

For days, we have been featuring the prospect that Rafsanjani might stand --- in part, because he sees an opportunity from the failure of the Supreme Leader's camp to put forth a candidate.

Now we can confirm that Rafsanjani is on the verge of running. What's more, he and his supporters are doing so with an implicit challenge to the Supreme Leader's authority and support of the detained opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

We have more on this in an exclusive article, "Rafsanjani Prepares for a Presidential Campaign...and a Challenge to the Supreme Leader".