Iranian reformist cleric Mehdi Karroubi accused Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei of endorsing alleged rigging in the disputed 2009 presidential election and backing the deadly crackdown on the Green Movement protests which followed.
Karroubi made the remarks during a meeting with the family of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the Green Movement leader who has been under house arrest since 2011. Both men were presidential candidates in the disputed 2009 election, which they contended was marred by fraud and irregularities.
“In the 2009 election, Mr. Khamenei not only did not tolerate the people’s vote, but he supported fraud and violent suppression and accused us of sedition, lack of insight and indecency,” Karroubi said.
The 2009 election, in which authorities swiftly declared Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner, triggered one of the biggest street unrests since the 1979 revolution, with mass demonstrations and a crackdown by security forces. Khamenei at the time urged Iranians to accept the result and later warned protesters to end rallies.
"Khamenei claimed insight, but destroyed the economy, culture, security and ethics, and what you see today is the product of that wrong approach,” Karroubi was quoted as saying by Iranian media.
Karroubi, who is no longer under house arrest, said both he and Mousavi “saw deviation” in 2009 and intervened out of concern for the country, arguing that the growing role of the Revolutionary Guards, Basij militia and security agencies in politics and the economy had “ruined” governance and eroded oversight.
“Oversight bodies lost their effectiveness and unbridled corruption spread throughout the country.”
Karroubi, a former parliament speaker who ran in 2009, also called for the release of Mousavi and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard. “I hope that childish grudges and stubbornness will end, and that we will soon witness the freedom of Mr. Mousavi and his respected wife,” he said.
Mousavi, a former prime minister who also contested the 2009 vote, has remained under house arrest with Rahnavard since 2011, while Karroubi’s detention eased earlier this year.
Karroubi linked political decisions to Iran’s economic deterioration, citing the currency’s collapse since their detention. “The day we went into house arrest, one dollar was 900 tomans and today it is 108,000 tomans, and if this path is not corrected God knows how much it will be in the near future,” he said.
He also criticized what he called excessive alignment with Moscow by some officials and lawmakers. “The deviation from the revolution and the martyrs’ ideals is such that some military men in parliament tear their shirts for [Vladimir] Putin,” he said.
Mousavi, who in July called for a referendum to convene a constitutional assembly, has said Iran’s political structure “does not represent all Iranians.”
Iranian authorities say the 2009 election was fair and that security measures then and since have been necessary to preserve order.
