The front page of Iran newspaper contained a picture of a stern President Hassan Rouhani looking straight ahead with the headline, “Rouhani’s election warning.” The paper, which operates under the administration, was alluding to Rouhani’s criticism of the hard-line Guardian Council, the body that approves or disqualifies candidates from running in the elections.

With his nuclear opponents on the ropes, Rouhani is focusing on the 2016 parliamentary and Assembly of Experts elections. But his comments Aug. 19 at a meeting of his Cabinet with the governors of the provinces has drawn the ire of his critics, including the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Mohammad Ali Jaffari.

Rouhani said, “The honorable Guardian Council is a supervisor, not an administrator. The administrator of the elections is the administration. The administration is responsible for carrying out the elections and agencies have been predetermined to supervise so that violations of the law do not take place.”

He continued, “The Guardian Council is the eyes and the eyes cannot do the work of the hands; supervision and administration should not be mixed. We have to completely pay attention to the constitution and act upon it.”