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Society & Culture

Rafsanjani Defiant as Son is Jailed

August 10, 2015
Reza HaghighatNejad
6 min read
Rafsanjani Defiant as Son is Jailed
Rafsanjani Defiant as Son is Jailed

“FINISHED” read the headline on Fars News Agency’s daily news supplement, reporting that Mehdi Hashemi, son of the former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, has begun his 10-year prison sentence for embezzlement and corruption.

But what is the real message behind this gleeful headline?

When it came to the Raja News website, another outlet that has been critical of the Hashemi Rafsanjani family, they presented the news within the context of an ongoing, 20-year-old saga. So does the Fars News Agency headline mean the saga is finally over? 

Iranian hardliners are of course jubilant that one of their most important campaigns against the Hashemi family has delivered. It is just the outcome they wanted, and it took them five years of non-stop hard work to undermine Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s grandeur and prestige. They are reveling in this huge victory — in fact, they could not have been happier if they had succeeded in undermining their other big enemy, the United States of America.

So just what did hardliners do to put Mehdi Hashemi into prison?

Beginning in the summer of 2009, hardliner media and politicians embarked on a well-organized media and political campaign against Mehdi Hashemi, joining efforts to pressure the judiciary and Iran’s security and intelligence institutions to arrest, try and incarcerate the former president’s son. At the same time, they applied constant pressure on his father, warning him not to get involved and pointing out other figures who had been forced to accept the imprisonment — and even the execution — of their children.

As part of this, hardliners accused Mehdi Hashemi of a huge array of crimes, from embezzlement and bribery to orchestrating “the Sedition” against the Supreme Leader and espionage. Depending on what the situation required, hardliners presented Mehdi Hashemi in a variety of ways: In 2011, a parliamentary committee issued a 700-page report accusing him of being the “war room commander” of protests in the aftermath of the disputed 2009 presidential election, with sympathetic media referring to him as “the Sedition’s Master Key”. 

But, over the last two years, hardliners have changed tack. Their emphasis has swung away from political misdeeds and focused instead on financial corruption. It was simple: Hardliners did not want to revive the memories of the 2009 election and even feared that this could lead to Hashemi's exoneration in some camps. At the same time, attention to corruption meant they could strike out at President Rouhani and his administration, which had vowed to tackle Iran’s endemic corruption problem. 

Hardliners can now present Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as they want to: A father of criminals — his daughter Faezeh a seditionist and his son Mehdi an embezzler.

But what will be most significant now is not that Hashemi Rafsanjani’s son is in prison, or even that someone they branded as anti-government protest leader has been denied his freedom. By employing a well-organized, targeted strategy, hardliners have won a unique victory, sending the president a clear message: If Rouhani wants to stamp out corruption, he must suffer the consequences, including a key supporter landing behind bars in Evin Prison. Contrary to the image the president wants to present, hardliners seem to be saying, in reality, Rouhani is tied to embezzlers and corrupt crooks. 

Just a Short-Term Setback?

But in reality, this recent victory can only be a short-term gain against Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and his family. A politician’s standing is not necessarily affected by the disgrace caused by their children. What matters is how that politician handles day-to-day matters and key political events.

One example is Ahmad Jannati, the chairman of the powerful Guardian Council. One of Jannati’s sons was a member of the anti-regime group the People’s Mojahedin Organization and another supports Hashemi Rafsanjani. But this does not affect his standing as one of Iran’s most powerful hardliner politicians. And, for the most part, the same can be said about Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. The verdict against his son will not condemn him to the political margins — and he still holds enormous power and influence.

In the coming year, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has three key goals. First, he must protect the Rouhani administration against attacks by hardliners in the post-nuclear deal environment. Second, he must determine the future of the Assembly of Experts, the body responsible for appointing and monitoring the work of the Supreme Leader, establishing a strong, effective minority that will drive the agenda he has championed. Lastly, Rafsanjani will play a key role in unifying reformist and moderate forces for the forthcoming parliamentary elections in February 2016.

Given these challenges and in the current climate, it is reasonable to assume that Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani will not dwell excessively on his son’s case, knowing how crucial it will be to not waste his political energy on creating fodder for his hardline opponents.

Rafsanjani has said in the past that he would publicly object  if his son’s case was not handled legally and appropriately. And so, in a video recorded on August 8 as his son prepared to begin his sentence at Evin, he stated that his son Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani was a victim of injustice, and that he would be freed soon. 

Those familiar with Rafsanjani’s character will know that, in addition to his patient and calm demeanor, he can also be  emotional — and even vindictive — at times. But for now he is remaining calm, selecting his commentary, and his criticism, carefully.

If Rafsanjani successfully achieves what he has set out to do — build support in the Assembly, rally reformists for the 2016 elections and do his part to protect Rouhani’s administration — he will be in an even more advantageous position to pursue his son’s case. 

And he done something similar before. Under Ahmadinejad’s government, and with the support of the head of the judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, he worked toward gaining control of Azad University, an extensive network of universities and colleges across Iran. At the time, he said that the university had been usurped illegally — not so different from the accusations he has made against his son's and family’s enemies. He waited patiently, until the Hassan Rouhani’s presidential victory in 2013 boosted his own political standing, and moved in to secure control of the university when the time was right. There is every reason to believe he will take a similar tack when it comes to the matter of his son.

So just how accurate and final can the “FINISHED” headline be? It seems premature to assume a 20-year saga has finally come to a close. Shrewd analysis of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s political character tells us the he rarely considers himself or his causes to be “finished”.  And when it comes to these causes, he never abandons them, and certainly never leaves them unfinished.

 

 

Related articles:

Rafsanjani’s Son Gets 10 Years. What's Next for the Man in the Shadows?

What can Rafsanjani do about his son's arrest?

Rafsanjani’s Son Begins Prison Term

 

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