By Farzad Agah
Some influential moderate clerics privately admit that Khamenei has not done "justice" to the presidential candidates and has not treated them with impartiality.
This behaviour, they believe, could jeopardise his position as leader since one of the main qualities required of the supreme leader is "justice".
Rafsanjani is also the chairman of the Expediency Council which is a body charged with the power to resolve differences or conflicts between parliament and the Guardians of the Constitution, but its true power lies more in its power to oversee the supreme leader.
It is a well-known fact that there is a lot of bad blood between Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani whom the president accuses of corruption and aristocratic behaviour.
Ahmadinejad angered Rafsanjani when in his presidential television debate with Mousavi, he alleged that all the three opposition candidates had been put forward by Rafsanjani to defeat him.
He further accused Rafsanjani of unlawfully accumulating massive wealth over many years and putting his cronies in the way of the president.
The allegations prompted Rafsanjani to write a highly critical open letter to Khamenei, which the supreme leader ignored.
The deep frustration and disillusionment of the mainly urban supporters of Mousavi, together with the establishment rifts now out in the open, are posing a serious threat to Khamenei's authority.
That may benefit Rafsanjani, who aspires to become the next supreme leader, and rumours abound that he is trying to muster support among some influential clerical members of the Assembly of Experts to take Khamenei to task.
This may prove difficult, however, considering that there is still the well-armed and powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard – that some say are the country's de facto rulers - to contend with.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast /2009/06/200961923416905779.html
