When Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, head of Iran’s Expediency Council, criticized Iran’s Guardian Council for their mass disqualification of candidates, including the grandson of the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the usual criticism of Rafsanjani from hard-liners was to be expected. The editor of Kayhan and newspapers linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps came out with scathing editorials. Iranian parliamentarian Seyyed Ali Mohammad Bozorgvari accused the 81-year old statesman of suffering from Alzheimer’s. The head of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s office, Mohammad Mohammadi-Gholpayegani, warned that the Assembly of Experts is a “sacred place and political games and factionalism has no path.”

The most surprising reaction, however, has been that Rafsanjani’s harsh comments seem to have sparked a fight between some Reformist and moderate figures.

Rafsanjani's Feb. 1 comments in response to the disqualification of Hassan Khomeini, grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, by the Guardian Council were bound to stir a reaction. His litany of rhetorical questions, “Where did you receive your qualification? Who gave you permission to judge? Who gave you the podium of Friday prayers and state television?” are indeed rare within the Islamic Republic leadership. 

Rafsanjani's claim that the Islamic Republic of Iran is “indebted” to Khomeini and his household was also provocative. And as is the norm in Iranian politics, Rafsanjani did not call out anyone by name. But the comments about Friday prayers and state television, two institutions under the supervision of the supreme leader, are perhaps his strongest and most controversial.