Ahmadinejad sticks by his VP appointment

TEHRAN, Iran – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stuck by his controversial appointment for a key top deputy Wednesday in an unusual defiance of Iran’s supreme leader who reportedly ordered the man’s removal. His move deepens the dispute among the country’s hard-line leadership.

Ahmadinejad’s defiance will likely outrage his fellow conservatives and could cause an outright rift between him and his close ally Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
On Wednesday, Ahmadinejad said he wanted time to explain his appointment and fervently defended Esfandiar Rahim Mashai.

“There is a need for time and another opportunity to fully explain my real feelings and assessment about Mr. Mashai,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech at a farewell ceremony for Mashai at the tourism organization he headed in his previous vice presidency post.

“One of virtues and glories God has bestowed to me in life was to get acquainted with this great, honest and pious man,” Ahmadinejad said, according to the state news agency IRNA. “Some are questioning why am I so interested in Mr. Mashai and I respond that it is for a thousand reasons. One is that when one sits and talks with him, you feel you are talking to yourself, you feel no distance. His heart is clear like mirror.”

Iran’s supreme leader handed a humiliation to the president, ordering him to dismiss his choice for top deputy after the appointment drew sharp condemnation from their hard-line base, media reported Wednesday.

The move by Khamenei appeared to show his need to keep hard-liners’ support even at the cost of angering the president, a close ally – at a time when Khamenei is facing unprecedented opposition after the disputed June 12 election.

Ahmadinejad’s appointment for his top vice president sparked a rare split within the hard-line camp to which he belongs. A chorus of ultra-conservative clerics and politicians denounced his choice, Mashai, while Ahmadinejad had strongly defended the appointment.

Mashai is a relative by marriage to Ahmadinejad – his daughter is married to the president’s son. Mashai angered hard-liners in 2008 when he said Iranians were “friends of all people in the world – even Israelis.”

He was serving as vice president in charge of tourism and cultural heritage at the time. Iran has 12 vice presidents, but the first vice president is the most important because he leads Cabinet meetings in the absence of the president.

After days of controversy, Khamenei ruled.

“The view of the exalted leader on the removal of Mashai from the post of vice president has been notified to Ahmadinejad in writing,” the semiofficial Fars News Agency reported Wednesday.

It was an unusually overt show of authority by Khamenei, who has the ultimate say in state affairs in Iran. The supreme leader is believed to weigh in on senior government appointments behind the scenes, but it is rare for him to openly order an official’s removal.