Azernews.Az

Iran's largest private university has become the focus of a bitter political battle for control between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his most powerful rival, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Mirroring intense factional conflicts since last year's contested elections, rival factions are in a power struggle for Azad Islamic University in Tehran, which has hundreds of campuses across Iran and assets worth tens of billions of dollars.
The university, one of the world's largest – with more than 1.5 million students and staff – is closely linked to Rafsanjani, a former president and self-described "pragmatic conservative" who is head of the powerful Assembly of Experts. Rafsanjani was one of the founders of the university in 1982. Pro-regime critics have accused him of packing the university management with allies.
Ahmadinejad is thought to want to punish the university for allegedly supporting the opposition. Mir Hossein Mousavi, the defeated opposition candidate in last year's election, was on its board of trustees until he was ousted a month ago.
Control of universities is a priority for the regime, which is fearful of the way the opposition Green movement has become rooted in campuses. But Sir Richard Dalton, an associate fellow at Chatham House and a former ambassador to Iran, said the struggle over Azad University was also about factional struggles in the regime.
"It's partly about the power struggle and partly about the cultural revolution. Most of all, however, it is about the domestic power struggle between Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani – another way of cutting Rafsanjani down. Ahmadinejad and his supporters thought they had managed to push the reformists and the centrists out of the picture, but this year there appears to have been some kind of understanding between [the supreme leader, Ayatollah] Khamenei and Rafsanjani.
"There is a recognition that Rafsanjani cannot be completely removed. That is why Ahmadinejad is trying to erode his position in society and politics, although Khamenei is refusing to play the game."
Since protests began, almost a third of those arrested have been students. Last month Azad University students held two days of protests on the anniversary of the election.
On Sunday protesters at Tehran's Arts University and Polytechnic University clashed with police after shouting "death to the dictator" and "death to Khamenei".
At the centre of Azad University's problems is its precise status.
Favoured by wealthier families whose children often do not have the exam grades to get into the more competitive public university system, the hugely wealthy institution raises fees like a private company.
But it has also in the past relied on the government when it needs its support and benefited too from grants of public lands.
The battle for control over Azad University began in earnest this year when Ahmadinejad imposed a new charter on it, aimed at pushing out its president, Abdullah Jasbi, a rightwing conservative but also an ally of Rafsanjani.
Pro-Ahmadinejad media had accused the university and its management of "officially supporting" Mousavi and accused staff of helping to foment protests.
Last month, Ahmadinejad tried to persuade parliament to allow him to appoint the president and board.
The move was rejected by parliament, but 100 pro-regime MPs later joined forces to insist that the Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution had the final say, not parliament. The issue will now be resolved by the powerful Guardian Council.
A spokesman for the supreme council, quoted by Iranian media outlets in the wake of the vote in parliament, continued to insist that the new charter imposed by Ahmadinejad was binding.
"Articles of association of the Islamic Azad University have been communicated. The university's board of trustees should name the new president within the next month. There is not much time," the SCCR's secretary announced.
The struggle over the university's future, not least in the Iranian parliament, has exposed the increasingly bitter divisions within Iran's competing power structures, with pro-Ahmadinejad protesters from the Basij militia threatening to set fire to the parliament building because for its blocking of the president.
In reply, parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani called the response by regime loyalists "vindictive".