Rafsanjani joins the "elections"....

Yesterday the former president Rafsanjani announced that he will stand for election in June, he is running on an “independent” platform, meaning that he wants to position himself between the conservatives and the reform camp. Rafsanjani is also trying to score points in the west by distancing him self from the current governments decision to withdraw from the nuclear talks with the European Union.

Today Rafsanjani told the press that the best strategy for Iran is to continue the nuclear talks with the European Union. He also said that he hadn’t consulted with the “Supreme Leader” Khamenei about his candidacy, an obvious attempt to distance him self from the conservatives.

Rafsanjani´s main problem is that the people of Iran know what he is capable of. He already has a “track-record” as president from 1989 to 1997. In 2000 parliamentary elections Rafsanjani failed to grab a seat in the Majlis, the elections showed that he had little support among the voters, and he had to rely on the “Guardian Council” to expel candidates from the elections so he would get his seat, which he later left.

But he didn’t step down from the power, instead he invented a new position for himself as the chairman of the “council of Expediency”, whose main function is to “resolve” disagreements between the Majlis (the parliament) and the “Guardian Council”. He has also during his time in power built a huge financial empire through extensive corruption.

A few courageous journalists have tried to investigate Rafsanjanis financial empire, and his role of murders on several human rights activists. Akbar Ganji, who we have reported on earlier, was one of them; as a result he’s now serving a 5 year prison sentence.

During his presidency Rafsanjani was responsible for massive corruption and violations of the human rights, including executions and imprisonments of political opposition. He played a key roll in the 1979 occupation of the US Embassy in Tehran, assassinations of political dissidents outside of Iran and involvement in terrorist actions in Israel.