Khatami Watch
Reformist former president Mohammad Khatami has said that mutual trust between the government and the Iranian people has disappeared during Ahmadinejad's presidency.
Khatami also said that the hopes and trust of the middle classes and young people had also eroded and must be restored. Iran's problems would not be solved, he added, without leadership and coordination.
Khatami said that Iran must first and foremost get over its "atmosphere of suspicion", and that currently a tough security atmosphere prevailed in Iran.
Syria Watch --- Iran Slams Destruction of Shia Shrine
See Also: Syria Today: A Mass Killing on the Coast
Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, the substitute leader of Tehran's Friday Prayers, has slammed Syrian insurgents for destroying the tomb of a Shia Muslim figure, Hujr ibn Adi.
The shrine of Hujr ibn Adi, a companion of the Prophet Mohammad and a supporter of the first Shia Imam, Ali ibn Abi Talib, is in Adra, just north of Damascus.
Khatami said the world was facing a tide of extremism that was using the "name of Islam" to attach a "minimum value to human beings".
Parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani also criticized the attack on the shrine, calling it a "crime" by "terrorists" and an "indication of their disbelief in Islam and in Muslim values".
Election Watch
In a Saturday editorial, conservative newspaper Jomhouri Eslami says that although anyone is eligible to run for president in Iran, it is best if past presidents do not enter the scene but instead just share their experiences with the next president.
The country, the editorial says, needs a president who is truly the most suitable, and not one who merely presents a facade of being that way.
The editorial said that all three political currents in Iran --- the Principlists (Conservatives), Reformists and Independents --- had the legal right to participate in the elections, while the authorities had the right to monitor and comment on them.
In a dig at Ahmadinejad and his economic track record -- and at the Principlist faction -- Jomhouri Eslami also criticized Principlists for supporting someone who had "no experience in macroeconomic management" and "no prior history with the Revolution", a move that "took objective observers by surprise".
Election Watch --- Rafsanjani Edition
The Supreme Leader's brother, Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Khamenei, has told the Fars News Agency that Iran's enemies are planning a complex plot ahead of the June presidential election, involving former president Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Seyyed Mohammad Khamenei said that last time, Iran's enemies planned a "color revolution", which failed because of the "zeal" of the Iranian nation.
"This time they surely will not use the same strategy. The sum of all ideas and expertise from American think tanks and their consultants, who led the 2009 sedition, seems to have lead to a new scenario.”
Iran's enemies, Seyyed Mohammad Khamenei explained, "have introduced someone who will attract the most votes and will resemble them in thought. As evidence shows, probably Mr. Rafsanjani is the best choice for this plan and it doesn't matter if he is aware of the depth of the conspiracy."
Seyyed Mohammad Khamenei said that the enemy had chosen Rafsanjani for several reasons, including "long-held belief in relations with the US and his public statements to that effect".
Other reasons were the "possibility that [Rafsanjani] will surpass the Guardian Council", "widespread propaganda" about his pre-revolutionary record and political positions prior to the 2009 sedition, his "support for sedition" and his "readiness to establish relations with some Arab sheiks and neighbors.”
Stand By Your Leader Watch
The Supreme Leader's camp may have been unable to declare a "unity" candidate for June's Presidential election.
So on Friday the message was that, whatever happens, Ayatollah Khamenei is the ultimate authority in the Islamic Republic.
In the Tehran Friday Prayer, Ayatollah Emami Kashani said Presidential hopefuls are not competent to talk about the possible normalisation of ties between Iran and the US:
You are neither competent, nor authorized to [make] a decision on the resumption of ties with the US. Certain issues defined in the Constitution lie within the authority of the Leader and not the President.
The [would-be] candidates should express and sketch out their tasks and responsibilities within framework of their executive authority.
Emami Kashani continued. "As the Leader said, the President is required to have management plan and the [prospective] candidates should talk to people about their plans and priorities."
Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf --- one of the members of the Supreme Leader's 2+1 Committee --- has said the Supreme Leader's authority must be acknowledged:“I do not think it is correct to say that a candidate can change the foreign policy, or that he can resume or break relations [with a foreign country]."
Qalibaf --- who has been touted as a Presidential choice but who may be too "independent" to be picked by Khamenei, said in a speech at Shiraz University --- “Foreign policy is a sovereign issue. In fact, the Leader makes the final decision… others are not decision-makers."
Qalibaf echoed, "It is wrong to tell the society that the country’s problems will be resolved if we establish relations with the United States.