Iran14 September, 20263 min read
Hard-Liners Dismiss Mahmoud Nabavian After Tehran Funeral Chants, Stones Against Abbas Araghchi
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Split in Tehran hard-liners widens as Mahdavi Khamenei's fate triggers coup fears. Meeting with Ghalibaf spurs reports of a plan to stage a coup against the government.
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Tehran power fight
Iran’s political arena is witnessing rising tensions after an agreement to a ceasefire with the United States, as hard-line currents that reject any understanding with Washington clash with current leadership seeking to impose a new political reality. The funeral rites of Ali Khamenei in Tehran showed a sharp split, with President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi subjected to hostile chants by angry mourners who threw stones at officials and accused them of treason and selling principles in exchange for deals with the West. The hard-liners’ fear centers on “a soft coup” amid ambiguity surrounding the fate of Mahdavi Khamenei, with observers saying the absence of the new Supreme Leader from the public scene has sparked questions about whether it stems from security concerns for his life or reflects incapacity to exercise constitutional and leadership duties.
The article says hard-line MPs like Mahmoud Nabavian publicly warned of a plot for an internal coup being prepared behind the scenes of power, and that Nabavian and other hard-line MPs were dismissed from their positions on the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee. It adds that the absence of Mahdavi triggers a race for influence among regime pillars, with figures such as Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, Beheshti, and Araghchi described as the actual faces of state administration while hard-liners feel excluded from the decision-making circle.
Parliament unity dispute
In Tehran, a plan to remove political legitimacy of Movahedi is described as a shot at cohesion at the highest levels of governance, as discussions around political incapacity and transferring presidential powers to a vice president reemerged. The reporting says Mojtaba Zarei, a Tehran representative, posted on Eitaa that a parliamentarian was seeking a coup against the government, writing: “this gentleman and the corrupt party of Shin are after a coup against the established government supported by the Guardian Jurist”. Ruhollah Lakelaibadi, a member of the Independent Vaeli Faction in the Parliament, is quoted describing how in “this session, 10 representatives spoke; Hamid Rasai raised the issue of the president’s lack of competence,” and that Rasai proposed transferring powers and appointing a deputy to assume the president’s powers.
Hassan Rasooli, a reformist political activist, told Khabar Online that “According to the Constitution, MPs have the right to question the president as well as ministers and even declare him politically incompetent,” while also arguing that in wartime conditions such demands have no relation to the people’s interests or national welfare. The same account says Rasooli warned that proposing demands that go against the Leader’s guidance aims to disrupt cohesion at the highest levels of governance, and that the Leader has described unity as the responsibility of officials over the past six to seven months.
Nuclear and regional pressure
Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom plans to increase the number of its specialists at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant to 150 in the near future, as it builds two new units at Bushehr. The Iran International report links the staffing move to the war against Iran launched by the United States and Israel on February 28, saying Rosatom evacuated hundreds of staff after that escalation. It also describes how the fall of the Ali al-Taher heights to Israel has turned Iran’s hardliners on the negotiators of the June deal with Washington, with the reformist daily Shargh warning that the Israeli attacks were being used for “political score-settling at home.”
In a separate weekly briefing, the UN Security Council is said to discuss the Iranian nuclear issue for the first time in 20 years, while parliamentary spokesperson Abbas Goudarzi is quoted saying withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is “completely achievable and easy to implement.” The same briefing says Oman postponed Iranian-Gulf talks on Hormuz Strait shortly before their scheduled start after Bahrain refused to participate, and it notes that the strait handles about a quarter of the world’s crude oil shipped by sea and nearly a third of global container traffic.