Ahmadinejad, conservatives in new election showdown

Iran is bracing for a fresh showdown between supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and some conservatives as simmering tensions build in the run-up to the March 2012 parliamentary election.

The aborted resignation of Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi set off a conservative storm against the President’s entourage, with the focus on his chief of staff and key adviser Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie.

On April 17, Iranian media announced Mr Moslehi, close to all-powerful supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had been dismissed after he tried to sack one of his deputies, who reportedly has close ties to Mr Mashaie.

But minutes later, Ayatollah Khamenei, who holds the ultimate authority in the country, personally intervened to overturn the dismissal.

Under the Constitution, the President is in charge of appointing ministers – who then need to be approved by the Parliament – as well as dismissing them.

But an unwritten law requires top ministers, including the intelligence, defence, interior and foreign affairs, to have the tacit approval of the supreme leader.

Ayatollah Khamenei’s intervention also provided a supreme opportunity for the conservatives to mount fresh attacks against Mr Ahmadinejad, with their media accusing Mr Mashaie of orchestrating the “current deviation”.

Mr Mashaie, a close relative of Mr Ahmadinejad, and who is rumoured to be the President’s choice to succeed him in 2013, has for years been the bane of the religious traditionalists in the Iranian regime.

In July 2009, Ayatollah Khamenei ordered the hardline Mr Ahmadinejad to reverse the appointment of Mr Mashaie as his first vice-president following a bitter outcry from the conservative camp.

Mr Mashaie was then strongly condemned for holding nationalistic views pertaining to the pre-Islamic Iran, and for remarks attributed to him despite his denial that Iran was “friend of the Israeli people” – a deep-seated taboo considering that Tehran does not recognise Israel.

And these days, he is also criticised for his efforts to push for an “Iranian school of Islam” and his liberalism on cultural and social issues.