Infighting amongst the factions of the Iranian regime is increasing dramatically with only five weeks to go until the presidential elections and the state-run media is warning that this could drive more people to support the Resistance. So what’s been happening?

Well, the Guardian Council, supervised by Supreme Leader and hardliner Ali Khamenei, has been eliminating candidates for this election (and others) based on new criteria that exclude the reformist candidates, not that there’s any real difference between the two factions.

Still, the state-run Mostaghel daily called this “dangerous” because it reinforced the perception that the Council is favouring the hardliners and more people will be aware that this election is anything but free and fair.

It wrote: “What [the rival faction] does not understand or do not want to understand is the great damage they bring for the Islamic Republic. Do they know that the removal of large sections of the system, while many of whom have been responsible for the preservation and development of the Islamic Republic for 42 years and are the fabric of the system, will hurt the whole body of the Islamic Republic?” 

They fear that the infighting and the elimination of candidates will create major rifts in society, not unlike the previous uprising of 2009, especially given the campaign for election boycott that has been taking place over the past few months. Their biggest fear, like that of the regime as a whole, is that the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) will organize the people into an uprising that will spell the end for the regime.

They wrote: “Why the [members of the rival faction] do not see that the sworn enemy of the system, the MEK, who have no desire but the [regime’s] overthrow call for riots and protests daily? Don’t they see that this old enemy has invested in creating rifts, even in the run-up to the presidential election?” 

So why does Khamenei even want to disqualify the reformist candidates? To consolidate power, as he did in the parliamentary elections last year, because he fears being swept from power and, in his mind, that will be less likely if his faction control every political body.

The paper wrote: “If the Guardian Council wants to repeat the process of the February 2020 parliamentary elections, it will create the same huge rift in the system that the enemy yearns. Since the first days of the revolution, hasn’t this been the MEK’s dream to create a rift at the head of the [regime]?”