Iran Live Coverage: How to "Engineer" an Election

"My husband is an engineer. He engineers elections." (Cartoon: Maya Neyestani)

See also Thursday's Iran Live Coverage: Ahmadinejad v. Parliament...and the Revolutionary Guards

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1605 GMT: Your Tehran Friday Prayer Update (Election Edition). More about the distinctive theme in today's Prayer sermon, delivered by the Guardian Council's Ayatollah Jannati, that while Iran has free elections, it is co-operation with the enemy to talk about free elections (see 1155 GMT)....

Jannati's threat to detained opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, both of whom ran in the June 2009 Presidential election, was straightforward: “The public has identified your movement and knows your leaders and the leaders of sedition, and they know what your aim is; you should be ashamed of yourselves.”

And Jannati made clear that, while "those who meet the necessary criteria will never be refused a chance to run in the elections", those who "they lack them...clearly will not be allowed to run".

But here is where it gets really interesting:

Those who consider themselves men of politics and have had important roles in the Revolution should be ashamed of themselves for repeating the statement of the foreign enemies of the regime....

The political losers are now talking about free elections and one of them is quite powerful and since a while ago he has begun talking about this issue and the rest have followed his line.

Who is this "quite powerful...political loser"? Surely not President Ahmadinejad, given that the Supreme Leader handed him the 2009 victory? Former President Mohammad Khatami does not seem to qualify as "quite powerful"?

How about former President Hashemi Rafsanjani?

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Iran Document: Supreme Leader to MPs "Heckling of President Ahmadinejad is Disgraceful"

Ahmadinejad Faces Parliament after HecklingMy unhappiness is because of the disrespect that was provided to the President. You disrespected the President. You have the right to point out things to him, question him, and even censure him but you cannot insult anyone, particularly the President. The Presidency is a respectable office in the constitution. Look at the record, Presidents have always had opponents in the Majlis; but when were they insulted in such a manner? This insulting behavior was cruel, unjust and a sin.

My concern is about the Majlis. I was really concerned about the Majlis itself. What kind of a situation is this in which the Majlis, a forum that is presented as the representative of the virtues of people, engages in cries of "No, No", and prevents someone from expressing his view? I have repeatedly told Mr. Larijani to prevent such behavior. Why is there such disrespectful "No No" calling? The only thing they have not done is start a physical fight and jump all over each other, like they do in some countries.

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The Latest from Iran (19 May): An Ahmadinejad Albatross Named Rahim-Mashai

1540 GMT: The President's Right-Hand Man. Another shot at Presidential Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai....

The weekly Ya Lesarat Al-Hossein quotes a student of Ahmadinejad’s mentor, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi: “Mashai is a freemason and should be arrested.”

Qasem Ravanbakhsh added that the contents of the president’s public speeches prove he has been heavily influenced by Mashai’s ideas.

The head of the conservative Society of Islamic Republic Martyrs, Hossein Fadai, accused the “deviant current” in the government of trying to foster relations with the US and foreign intelligence services (see 0500 GMT).

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