Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – October 13, 1985

I went to the parliament. Before the formalization of the parliament, the representatives were warned not to cause the imam to resent the parliament and the enemies to be happy about the imam's lack of influence with the few votes in favor of the prime minister. Mr. Montazeri also requested that the number of favorable votes should not be low because of the imam. Mr. [Mirhossein] Mousavi's opponents were offended by this remark and Mr. Mohammad Khamenei, [Mortaza] Fahim, [Hossein] Mousaviani and... protested.

Our first order was to vote for the government. The participation of representatives in the meeting was low. 261 people from a total of 267 representatives came. 162 were in favor, 73 were against and 26 abstained. The 99 dissenting and abstaining votes [despite the previous warning] were contrary to the Imam's theory, caused great discomfort to the majority of the representatives and became a means of discrediting and introducing the anti-velayat faqih of the conservative movement. Some call this one of their big political mistakes. Their positive point was their worship, which may have been taken away from them with this vote, and they themselves consider this to be the conscientiousness of the representative, and they think that the imam is not satisfied with the representative voting against his opinion.

In the evening Mr. [Fazlullah] Mahalati came. He talked about the war, the IRGC and the army, and he was very upset that this line was stigmatized as opposing the Imam. He said that the majority of the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are angry and may not be willing to protect them. It is also reported from other places that the institutions of the revolution are trying to express their disgust; The situation of the representatives is also exciting.

The chief of the [joint] army staff came. He gave comments about the war and thanked me for my statements in the Friday prayer. Mr. Ahmed Attari, our new ambassador in Australia, came and we negotiated. I stayed the night in the parliament.