Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran’s former president and grand man of politics, denied in an interview last week (Oct. 7) that he will run for president in the elections next year. But his very denial, coupled with remarks that he and men close to him have recently made, has set the rumor mills in Tehran buzzing: Rafsanjani is aiming at a comeback!
In an interview with the little-known newspaper Arman-e Ravabet-e Umumi, Rafsanjani noted that there were no legal barriers to his candidacy, but said he did not wish to run. The choice of an obscure newspaper to make this announcement was a bit odd, but the same paper ignited speculation about Rafsanjani’s presidential intentions with a front-page story five days earlier that quoted Rafsanjani as telling a close associate, Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri, “I will without hesitation be on the scene for the 11th presidential elections.” Nouri, the newspaper reported, had urged Rafsanjani to respond to attacks on himself and his family — attacks, Nouri said, that were causing concern for revolutionaries, merchants in the bazaar and members of the clergy.
