The Man in the Shadow: Mojtaba Khamenei: Via Tehran Bureau.

[TEHRAN BUREAU] Despite the transparency of your positions [regarding various issues], there have been reports that your respected son — Mr. Sayyed Mojtaba — has supported one of the candidates [in the presidential elections]. Then, I heard that a high official has told you that, “Your son has supported one of the candidates” [implying that he had carried out his father’s order], to which you have reportedly responded, “He is his own man, not just my son,” which made it clear that [his] support was his own personal view [and preference, and not yours].

At the same time there were reports about his [Mojtaba’s] support for another candidate — whose star suddenly dimmed three days before the elections and [the] kindness and support moved toward the other candidate — and that he [Mojtaba] had even had an active role in the campaign of that candidate [before switching to the other candidate]. You are well aware that the unwise intervention of the relatives and aids of some religious and political officials in the past [elections] has had very negative consequences for the political establishment and the nation.

Therefore, due to my respect for you and my concern [for the country], I ask you with utmost sincerity not to allow another bitter experience to be added to those of the past. You are the successor to the Imam [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini] who, when some people claimed that [his oldest son] the late Ayatollah Mostafa Khomeini [who passed away in 1977] had prevented them from contacting him, ordered, despite his [Mostafa’s] intellectual and religious significance, that, “he [Mostafa] must not intervene in my affairs.”

This is an excerpt from a letter that Mahdi Karroubi wrote to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in reference to the first round of the Iranian presidential election on June 17, 2005. Karroubi, who is a former Speaker of the Majles (parliament) and ran as a reformist candidate in June’s presidential election, also ran back in 2005.

Read Original Article:(Via Tehran Bureau.)