Unpublished by Tajzadeh.

Jafar Shirali Nia

Khatami received around 20 million votes, while his rival, Nateq-Nouri, garnered about 7 million. Khatami stated that some believed in complete and extensive changes, but he argued that if they wanted to act democratically, they should allow even their rival, Nateq-Nouri, to participate in the cabinet in proportion to the votes he received. For example, if a quarter of the votes in the election belonged to him, then a quarter of the cabinet should also be allocated to his faction. "I told some friends that this is my opinion, and I didn’t do it out of your fear; what does it mean to exclude everyone?"

Mostafa Tajzadeh confirms Khatami's account but believes that Khatami's proposal would only be feasible if the opposing side was also willing to include Khatami’s faction in important power sectors outside of the government.

Tajzadeh mentioned that Ali Larijani once told him it would be better for Khatami to allocate part of the cabinet to the opposing faction. In response, Tajzadeh stated that he believed half of the cabinet should go to the opposing faction, and in return, Khatami’s faction should have a 50% share in managing the judiciary, the IRGC, and so on.

Tajzadeh: "The reality was that all the power was in their hands. We should head in the direction Khatami suggests, but on the condition that this is extended to all areas of power... I said, look, Mr. Larijani, public opinion is 70 to 30, perhaps even higher. I’m not saying the power in Iran should be distributed 70 to 30; I’m saying distribute it 50 to 50, and you won’t accept that."

It may not be possible, but these days my hope for the publication of the book "The Life and Times of Seyyed Mohammad Khatami" has increased.

For the compilation of this book, I conducted 22 sessions with Seyyed Mohammad Khatami and numerous detailed interviews with political and cultural figures, and my research team and I reviewed tens of thousands of pages of internal and external documents and sources.

Yesterday, I was reviewing sections of the book, and this excerpt caught my attention, so I wanted to share it with you