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As we moved toward the sound, our eyes began to sting, and upon enquiry, the incredible met our ears: Security forces had thrown tear gas among the prayer-makers. “God is Greater!” had been the collective response, and after fumes dispelled, people had resumed their praying.

14:03 We agreed that you will stop chanting. If we do not have the votes of the people behind us, we will have nothing. The guardian council, the expediency council, EVERYONE gets their legitimacy from the vote of the people.

14:09 I have some suggestions. I have spoken to some members of the the expediency council and the assembly of experts about them too.14:10 We must bring back the trust of the people. First of all, everyone must accept the law. The people, the parliament, everyone.14:11 We must create a condition so that everyone can speak. We must speak logically. And a part of this is on the shoulders of the broadcasting corporation.14:12 The guardian council did not make good use of the extra fives days given to them by the leader.14:13 We do not need people in prison for this. Let’s allow them to return to their families.14:14 We must join hands with those who have incurred great loss and try to lesson their pain.14:15 We must give freedom to the press within the confines of the law.14:15 We are all members of the same family. We must remain friends and allies. Why have we gone so far as to pain some of our marajeh [top religious leaders]?14:16 I hope this sermon will pave a way out of this current situation. A situation that can be considered a crisis.14:17 The sermon is finished.

His son, Mojtaba, attended Alavi High School, a private religious school with a rigorous course load. (The school is located on Iran Street in central Tehran, where the author grew up.) Many of Iran’s present leaders are graduates of this high school.

His first teachers were his own father and Ayatollah Sayyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, the current judiciary chief. Mojtaba was not a cleric yet. In 1999, he moved to Qom to study to join the ranks of clerics. He was taught there by conservative and ultraconservative clerics such as Mesbah Yazdi; Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi Golpayegani, the first Secretary-General of the Guardian Council in the 1980s; and Ayatollah Sayyed Mohsen Kharrazi, the father of former foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi. (Kharrazi’s real name is Sayyed Mohsen Agha Mir Mohammad Ali and his daughter is married to Mojtaba’s younger brother, Mohsen, a junior cleric.)

Mojtaba Khamenei is also very close to Ayatollah Abolghasem Khazali,

One link is a mysterious figure not known to most Iranians. His name is Ayatollah Aziz Khoshvaght, who is a great supporter of Mojtaba Khamenei. Ayatollah Khamenei’s third child, Mostafa (Mojtaba’s older brother), is married to Khoshvaght’s daughter.

Khoshvaght is the prayer leader of a large mosque in northern Tehran, and a radical hardliner. Saeed Emami, the notorious figure who was responsible for the infamous Chain Murders in the fall of 1998, which resulted in the murder of six Iranian dissidents (and the murder of close to 70 other dissidents from 1988-1998), was a follower of Khoshvaght.

Khoshvaght is also close to and influential in the affairs of Ansar-e Hezbollah,

Mojtaba Khamenei and the paramilitary groups is Brigadier General Sayyed Mohammad Hejazi,

The third link between Mojtaba Khamenei and the paramilitary groups is Hassan Taeb, the current commander of the Basij. A hardliner and cleric, he is also linked with Mesbah Yazdi and his followers.

Other relatively young radicals and disciples of Mesbah Yazdi include Mohsen Gharavian and Ghassem Ravanbakhsh. The former always attempts to present a moderate and reasonable image of Mesbah Yazdi and his thinking, whereas the latter who is the editor-in-chief of Partow Sokhan, the weekly published by Mesbah Yazdi, is virulently opposed to the reformist-democratic movement.

However, many clerics in Qom dispute Mojataba Khamenei’s religious credentials.

There have been persistent rumors that Brigadier General Ali Fazli, who lost his left eye in the Iran-Iraq war, the commander of the IRGC forces in the Tehran province, has been opposed to the harsh crackdown on the protesters and demonstrators (reportedly ordered by Mojtaba Khamenei). Both he and Major General Mohammad Ali (Aziz) Jafari, the top commender of the IRGC, are said to be opposed to Mojtaba Khamenei’s meddling and power plays.

Mojtaba Khamenei is married to a daughter of Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel, a university professor and former conservative Speaker of the Majles. After he was elected the Speaker of the 8th Majles in 2004, Haddad Adel once said, “We were told [by Ayatollah Khamenei] to be here [in the Majles to control it for the Ayatollah],” for which he was widely mocked by the reformists. But this statement indicated how the Ayatollah was putting his loyalists everywhere. Ayatollah Khamenei’s oldest daughter is married to Hojatoleslam Mohammad Mohammadi Golpayegani, his chief of staff.

But the more dangerous possibility is that the sources of these polls are really intending to manipulate the actual election results and are thus preparing the groundwork for their final announcement of a “victory.”