The rejected Iranian presidential candidate Ali Larijani has criticized the country’s powerful Guardian Council in an unusually open manner. “I had hoped that all of them together could address the country’s problems, especially the economic pressure on the people caused by the sanctions,” Larijani wrote in a handwritten statement shared on X on Monday. “But in my case, the Guardian Council has prevented this endeavour with opaque means.” The former parliamentary speaker and chief nuclear negotiator Larijani had been considered a secret favourite in political circles because he is recognized b…