Clerics defy leader on Iran election, ask for nullification

The statement by the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qum represents a significant, if so far symbolic, setback for the government and especially the authority of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose word is supposed to be final. The government has tried to paint the opposition and its top presidential candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, as criminals and traitors, a strategy that now becomes more difficult - if not impossible.

“This crack in the clerical establishment and the fact they are siding with the people and Moussavi in my view is the most historic crack in the 30 years of the Islamic republic,’’ said Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University. “Remember they are going against an election verified and sanctified by Khamenei.’’

Since the election, the bulk of the clerical establishment in the holy city of Qum, an important religious and political center of power, has remained largely silent, leaving many to wonder when, or if, the nation’s most senior religious leaders would jump into the events that have posed the most significant challenge to the country’s leadership since the Islamic Revolution. With its statement yesterday, the association of clerics - formed under the leadership of the revolution’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini - came down squarely on the side of the reform movement.

The association includes reformists, but Iranian political analysts describe it as independent and it did not support any candidate in the recent election.

The clerics’ decision to speak up is not itself a game changer and could fizzle under pressure from the state. Some seminaries in Qum rely on the government for funds, and the supreme leader and the man he has declared the winner of the election, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have powerful backers there.

Also yesterday, Mousavi released documents detailing a campaign of alleged fraud by Ahmadinejad’s supporters that assured his reelection, while an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader accused Mousavi of treason, the Washington Post reported.

Hossein Shariatmadari, a special adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, accused Mousavi of being a “foreign agent’’ working for the United States and a member of a “fifth column’’ determined to topple Iran’s Islamic system of governance.

In a 24-page document posted on his website, Mousavi’s special committee studying election fraud accused influential Ahmadinejad supporters of handing out cash bonuses and food, increasing wages, printing millions of extra ballots, and other acts in the run-up to the vote.

The committee, whose members were appointed by Mousavi, said the state did everything in its power to get Ahmadinejad reelected, including using military forces and government planes to support his campaign, the Post reported.