Rafsanjani, an ultimate insider of the Islamic Republic, accusing the Guardian Council, etc. of "frauds" against him is laughable. In the 2000 parliamentary elections in Iran, the Guardian Council apparently tried to save his ass from a humiliating spectacle of utter unpopularity, but the ensuing exposure was so embarrassing that he still had to resign from the seat that was said to have been given to him.
<blockquote>Powerful conservatives, particularly former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, wanted to punish the press for its great influence over voters. In the months leading up to the poll, [Akbar] Ganji and other commentators led a full-fledged campaign against Rafsanjani, who ran for a seat in parliament from Tehran. Ganji accused Rafsanjani of being behind a series of murders of secular intellectuals during his presidency and of corruption in his family. The assault achieved its purpose: Rafsanjani squeezed by in an embarrassing thirtieth place in preliminary results, apparently winning just enough votes to secure a seat in the first round of voting. Many reformists speculated that he had done worse and had lost all together. Their instincts were bolstered by a report a few days after the election on a secret information wire distributed by the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). The report said that Rafsanjani had finished thirty-first, pushing him into a runoff election that he would likely lose. But one hour after the report was circulated, it was withdrawn without explanation. For a man who considers himself still at the center of Iranian politics and who was tapped to be speaker of the parliament, revenge seemed the only logical response.
His conservative backers on the Guardian Council then stepped in to save him. They announced in March that there had been widespread cheating in the tallying of votes for Tehran and proceeded to recount the ballots until May. When the final results were certified three months after the actual vote, Rafsanjani placed twentieth in the poll, but few believed it was true. Sources in the Interior Ministry, who were in charge of the election, said that they had proof that the Guardian Council fabricated the results to boost Rafsanjani's standing. Even the conservative press took the opportunity to ridicule him. In the end, Rafsanjani resigned in disgrace from his new seat as deputy in parliament. He said he was quitting to "save the revolution." But in reality, he stepped down to salvage what was left of his reputation. Despite Rafsanjani's low popularity rating among voters, he still wields enormous power as the head of the Expediency Council, a body that ultimately determines the law of the land when legislation passed by parliament is disputed by the watchdog Guardian Council. Members of the Expediency Council are appointed by Iran's supreme leader, who is considered by conservatives to have divine power. (Geneive Abdo, "The Fragility of Khatami's Revolution," The Washington Quarterly, Autumn 2000, p. 59-60, <http://www.twq.com/autumn00/abdo.pdf>)</blockquote>
Despite all that, Rafsanjani kept and still has one of the most powerful positions in the republic, chair of the Expediency Council, thanks to Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader.
Rafsanjani, already 71 years old last year*, should never have run for presidency again to begin with, especially after the 2000 fiasco. With Khomeini and Khamenei, Rafsanjani is said to have presided over the alleged mass execution of "6.000 to 15.000 prisoners of both sexes" in 1989 (a majority of whom, it must be said, were MEK members -- cf. Safa Haeri, Iran Press Service, <http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2000/dec_2000/montazeri_memories_131200.htm>), so those reformists who backed Rafsanjani in the runoff only showed their true colors: for them, neoliberal capitalism is more important than anything else.
* In contrast, Ahmadinejad was only 49 last year, a lot younger than not only Rafsanjani but also many LBO-talk subscribers. :-> Karrubi is about the same age as Rafsanjani, and all the other 2005 presidential candidates are of Ahmadinejad's generation, fyi. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>