Crowds grieve for Rafsanjani
Thousands throng streets of Iranian capital for funeral of former president
TEHRAN // Hundreds of thousands of mourners attended the funeral yesterday of Iran’s former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
It took more than two hours for the cortege to make its way through the crowds to the south Tehran mausoleum, where Rafsanjani was laid to rest. Pallbearers accidentally knocked the former president’s white turban off the coffin as they carried it into the burial chamber at the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.
Rafsanjani, who served as president from 1989 to 1997, had in recent years become a father figure for Iran’s moderate and reformist camps, despite a chequered past of corruption and links to the murders of political opponents.
His death is a blow for president Hassan Rouhani, whose 2013 election was largely due to Rafsanjani’s support.
Mr Rouhani, who spearheaded the thaw with the West that culminated in a 2015 nuclear deal, faces a tough re-election battle in May amid disappointment over the smaller than anticipated economic gains from the lifting of international sanctions.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led the eulogies to Rafsanjani at Tehran University, despite their differences.
Rafsanjani fell out of favour with the regime’s inner circle following the 2009 re-election of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, when he spoke out against the use of lethal force on protesters who claimed the vote was rigged.
Mr Rouhani attended the funeral but so too did his conservative rivals, parliament speaker Ali Larijani, and his brother, judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani.
One of Iran’s most controversial figures in the West, the head of the elite Revolutionary Guards’ foreign operations division, Maj Gen Qassem Suleimani, also attended.
Tehran prayer leader Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani passed out and had to be treated at the scene by health minister Hassan Ghazizadeh Hashemi, an ophthalmologist by training.
Reformist former president Mohammad Khatami, an ally of Rafsanjani but long out of favour with the regime, was not part of the official delegation.
State television coverage of the funeral procession captured a few seconds of chants of “Hail Hashemi, hail Khatami” before the broadcaster drowned it out with solemn music. Rafsanjani’s son, Mohsen, had invited people to attend the service “in full tranquility”.
“Ayatollah Rafsanjani’s concern was unity and we should show off our unity to the world,” he said on Monday. Black banners were raised in Tehran and some posters showed the supreme leader and Rafsanjani together smiling. Another poster said “good bye, old combatant”.
Since Rafsanjani’s death, messages of condolence have poured in from home and abroad, including from the UAE and other Gulf states. Even the White House sent a message, unprecedented since the 1979 revolution that led to the cutting of ties between Tehran and Washington.
“Former president Rafsanjani was a prominent figure throughout the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States sends our condolences to his family and loved ones,” spokesman Josh Ernest said.