In an apparently orchestrated effort, official state media have started reporting that some members of Ahmadinejad’s inner circle are relying on fortune-tellers; others are charged with embezzling government money. Official publications have begun referring to Ahmadinejad’s four top aides as leaders of a “deviant” political current that is trying to gain absolute power in the country.
The power struggle took one of its apparent victims Tuesday when Iran’s deputy foreign minister and ally of a top Ahmadinejad aide resigned. The Associated Press reported that Mohammed Sharif Malekzadeh faced corruption charges, but has denied the allegations.
The moves against the advisers follow a recent series of public clashes between the president and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and signal a growing challenge to the president’s grip on power.
Ahmadinejad’s advisers represent “the most dangerous current in the history of Shiite Islam,” said Mojtaba Zolnour, a leading cleric in the Revolutionary Guard forces, the semiofficial Mehr News Agency reported last week. Another former supporter, hard-line ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, recently called those close to the president “garbage” and “trash.”
There has often been competition among Iran’s several power centers over the 32-year-old history of the Islamic republic. But the blunt personal attacks on Ahmadinejad and his team are extraordinary, and there are indications that the pressure might be mounting. Last week, semiofficial media in Iran reported that a planned state visit by Ahmadinejad to neighboring Armenia was canceled when two of his advisers were not allowed to leave the country.
Some Iranian politicians and analysts say that they believe the supreme leader has given the president a final chance to remove the aides, and that if Ahmadinejad does not do so, he could face impeachment.
Although a decision to remove the president could bring instability and political costs for Khamenei, Ahmadinejad “could be removed if the leadership would see that fitting,” said Amir Mohebbian, a political analyst who in the past supported the government but is now critical of its policies.
Analysts say the attacks on the advisers are aimed at further isolating Ahmadinejad, who would be left more weakened and alone without his aides around him.
Iran’s judiciary said this month that at least a dozen people connected to the president had been arrested since April. The group did not include any of Ahmadinejad’s closest advisers.
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