With fewer than 40 days to the presidential elections in Iran, the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is confronted with the real challenge of reformers, conservatives and deviants. After the troubles the regime faced in the wake of the 2009 presidential elections, when it placed the two leading candidates, Mir-Hussein Moussavi and Mahdi Karroubi, under house arrest, the government has decided to conduct the next elections in a more low-key manner. For the first time in the Islamic Republic's history and with fewer than five weeks to the elections, the candidates are still unknown, though it seems that Khamenei and the Council of Guardians, which is responsible for vetting the candidates, have shortened the period between registration and approval in order to minimise the public's anticipation about the elections. Things had been going smoothly for the regime until people began inviting Mohamed Khatami and Akbar Hashimi Rafsanjani, both former presidents, to run again. Alarm bells started to ring when hardliners learned that both Khatami and Hashimi Rafsanjani were interested in running for office, or at least could be influential in the outcome of the elections. The regime had intended less popular candidates to run. Candidates such as the mayor of Tehran, Mohamed Bagher-Ghalibaf, former foreign minister and now aid to the Supreme Leader Ali Akbar Velayati, and Hassan Rouhani, the former nuclear chief negotiator, were among those interested in running for the presidency and they would have fitted the bill better. Yet, it seems that the regime may have made a miscalculation. While Moussavi and Karroubi remain under house arrest, Khatami has been testing the waters. The reformists have decided to take action, it seems, even if Moussavi and Karroubi remain prisoners, indicating that they do not wish to boycott the elections. For Hashimi Rafsanjani the situation is very different. He was once among the pillars of the Islamic Revolution, and he has survived Iranian politics for decades, counting on his influence among the clerics in Qom and of course the wider public. Perhaps Hashimi Rafsanjani's most notable action was the role he played in making Ali Khamenei the country's new Supreme Leader when Ayatollah Khomeini died. He was also once the apple of the eye of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and was appointed by Khomeini as de facto commander-in-chief of the Iranian military during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, though he is now deeply unpopular among those loyal to the present supreme leader. Hashimi Rafsanjani has long been able to shift political alliances to survive politically and remain relevant. When the breeze of reform entered the political scene in Iran with Khatami's election as president in 1997, Hashimi Rafsanjani changed gear: it was a time to stand with the people no matter whether the reformists ruined his reputation and stabbed him in the back or not, he evidently thought. When the reformists had completed what they thought was necessary to clear their accounts with Hashimi Rafsanjani, it was the conservatives' turn to trash the former president and his family in order to gain power. Most recently, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his young conservative supporters have taken the opportunity to attack him. Nevertheless, he survived the public mistrust, and he forged a new bond with the people when he led a historic Friday prayer four years ago after the elections had traumatised the nation. From his tribune in Tehran, Hashimi Rafsanjani made statements that created a new boundary between him and the ultra-conservatives. He called for the restoration of trust by releasing prisoners, freeing the media, emphasising the rule of law, and engaging in dialogue between the opposition and the regime, couching these calls in the language of legitimacy and justice. “Don't let our enemies laugh at us for putting people in prison,” he urged. “We must search for unity in order to find a way out of our quandary,” he added, indicating a shift in position from the supreme leader's side to the side of the people. Hashimi Rafsanjani is almost 80 years old today, but his candidacy or involvement could pose a significant challenge in the forthcoming elections. The Council of Guardians would face a backlash if it disqualified Hashimi Rafsanjani, who is part of the system and still has an official title. He may withdraw his candidacy in favour of other candidates, but his presence and support could serve as a game-changer, which is exactly what makes Khamenei and his supporters upset. Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad and his supporters have been remaining quiet. They have been labelled as a “deviant movement” and their candidate, who might be Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, the current chief of staff, is another challenge to the system. It could now be that candidates like Mashaei and Hashimi Rafsanjani will contest the presidency in the forthcoming elections, which is not at all what Khamenei might have expected. Just a few months ago in Cairo during Ahmadinejad's visit, I asked Ahmadinejad's assistant what he thought of Hashimi Rafsanjani's candidacy. “He is fire,” he replied. “Real fire.”
