Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – August 16, 1996

Mr. [Mohammed Ali] Sharai, [Mohammed Reza] Fakir, Javad Larijani and Dr. [Moussi] Zargar came. They said that they were sent by the representatives of the faction of militant clerics in the parliament to ask my opinion about the upcoming presidential elections. I said that we are negotiating and consulting with the leadership. I don't want to comment before the conclusion of our negotiations. I only talked about two solutions; One is to create a serious competition for the election to be hot and with a large participation of the people, in this assumption, the desired president may not emerge from the elections, and the other way is not to look for a serious competition, in which case, naturally, the elections will be low-profile and the participation of the people will not be large. The leadership should choose one of these two policies. They said that among the possible candidates, they prefer Mr. Natiq Nouri, and they are worried about the nomination of Mr. Ray Shahri, who will win part of the votes of this faction. In order to prevent the presence of rivals such as Mr. [Ali Akbar] Velayati and Mr. [Hasan] Rouhani, who would divide the votes of this faction, they relied on it.

Mr. [Ali] Ghiori and [Mahmoud] Lolachian came for Islamic community schools and Iranian schools in Dubai and similar works. Mr. Ghiori reported that Mr. Ray Shahri is serious at the moment and said that he had serious negotiations with the leadership in Mashhad, but he did not agree to prefer any of the mentioned people and said that Mr. Mohammadi Golpaygani, unlike in the past, criticizes Mr. Natiq [Nouri] and he himself is resentful of Mr. Natiq. He insisted that I accept the continuation of the presidency.

[Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad], the governor of Ardabil, came and requested for the construction affairs of the province and the strengthening of Moghan agriculture and industry and customs. He insisted on my imminent trip to the province, especially during the holy congress of Ardabili. [Minister of Post, Telegraph and Telephone] Mr. [Syed Mohammad] Gharehi came and asked for mobile phone currency. In the evening Dr. [Hasan] Rouhani, [Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council] came. We discussed the issues raised by Mr. Weimer, the special envoy of the German Chancellor, and the presidential election. I went to visit Mr. Mousavi Ardabili. We had various negotiations. There were also a group of acquaintances of Beit Imam. I came home