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.