That’s what the daily Tehran-e Emruz reports. He is widely viewed as a mentor to President Ahmadi-nejad. He was elected a deputy from Tehran in the 2008 Majlis elections. And he is a close follower of Ayatollah Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, a firebrand of a clergyman. In 2007, he was quoted as saying of reformists, “Like toilet paper you use to wipe a baby’s behind and then throw away, toss these filthies away, too.”