MAHMOUD Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, fired his culture and intelligence ministers yesterday as tensions among fundamentalists rose over the composition of his next cabinet.
The development underlines the extent of the political tension in Tehran following last month’s disputed presidential elections. It is rare for senior officials to be dismissed; they are usually said to have “resigned” for the sake of their public standing.
Domestic news agencies did not explain why Hossein Saffar-Harandi, the culture minister, and Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, the intelligence minister, lost their jobs. There was speculation that their dismissals followed a row within the government over the post of the first vice-president.
Unconfirmed reports suggested tensions increased in last Wednesday’s cabinet meeting after four ministers, including the two to be expelled, clashed with the hardline president over his appointment of Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei as first vice-president, and walked out of the meeting. Mr Mashaei, a close ally of the president, infuriated some conservatives last year when he suggested that the government’s position towards Israeli people was one of friendship.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, who is meant to have the last word in state affairs, wrote a letter to Mr Ahmadinejad and urged him to remove his newly appointed vice-president.
In an unprecedented move for a head of government, Mr Ahmadinejad initially defied the order in spite of warnings by fundamentalists that he could not do so. The four ministers were reported to have questioned the president’s loyalty to the top leader in the cabinet meeting, and urged him to dismiss Mr Mashaei immediately. Iran’s state television finally publicised the letter last Friday, and Mr Mashaei stepped down over the weekend.
The president immediately appointed Mr Mashaei as the head of his office to keep him as close as possible to the government’s agenda, and in a clear move to snub his opponents.
Reformists who accuse Mr Ahmadinejad of rigging his way to victory in the election suspect the row was played up to distract public attention from the protests that followed the June 12th presidential poll. – ( The Financial TimesLimited 2009)