But the Majlis isn’t about to make peace with the president as he retreats. It overwhelmingly rejected the president’s nominee for the post, a vote that was taken as more a rejection of the president than the proposed minister.
Ahmadi-nejad has been progressively backing away from fights with the Majlis one after another as he has come under a concerted assault from deputies, many of whom, were once his allies.
It remains open season on the president, however, and critics are not relenting in their attacks. The president is clearly wounded and stumbling.
Many analysts are predicting he may be impeached and removed from office. That, however, would require approval from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi, who does not appear to want any impeachment, but who may be quite happy to see Ahmadi-nejad bloodied.
Officials close to Kham-enehi have said he opposes impeachment because he feels it would make the state look weak and unstable. Stability has always been very high on the list of Khamenehi’s priorities.
Ahmadi-nejad last Tuesday sent to the Majlis the name of Hamid Sajjadi to be the minister of sports and youth. Sajjadi, 42, is currently the deputy director of the Physical Education Organization and represented Iran in the 1992 and 1996 Olympics in track and field.
But when the Majlis voted on him Tuesday, only 87 voted for him while 137 deputies voted nay and 23 abstained. It was the smallest vote any cabinet nominee had ever received apart from two women nominated by Ahmadi-nejad in 2009 who were firmly rejected when the Majlis decided only to allow one woman in the cabinet, Health Minister Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi.
Deputies were furious—not with Sajjadi but rather with the letter Ahmadi-nejad sent to the Majlis nominating Sajjadi. In the letter, Ahmadi-nejad continued to rage against the whole idea of a Ministry of Sports & Youth even while he was conceding its establishment.
Many Majlis deputies called the letter’s tone insulting and demanded that it be returned to the president. One deputy labeled the letter a “goblet of poison.” Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani said he found the letter objectionable but it was time to move on; he refused to send the letter back to the president.
Ahmadi-nejad only conceded the creation of the ministry after Larijani filed a formal complaint with the Judiciary because Ahmadi-nejad had not created the ministry by the deadline of June 6 stated in the law.
But the Majlis is having its own problems as it grapples with the president. A few weeks ago, Ahmadi-nejad, in an earlier concession to the Majlis, sent it a proposal to merge the Transport Ministry and the Housing Ministry. Before that, Ahmadi-nejad contended he had the authority to merge ministries on his own.
The Majlis took the president’s bill and amended it, merging not just the Transport Ministry and the Housing Ministry but also the Communications Ministry in one giant Infrastructure Ministry.
The Council of Guardians has now ruled that bill to be unconstitutional, however, because the Majlis did not provide enough detail on how to merge the three ministries. And on Saturday, the armed forces wrote the Majlis objecting to the inclusion of the Communications Ministry in the merger on security grounds.
Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi has also been sucked into the unrelenting political tussle between president and Majlis. Majlis deputies screamed when Salehi named a new deputy foreign minister, Mohammad Sharif Malekzadeh. Many deputies shouted that Malekzadeh was about to be indicted for corruption. But they may have been mostly concerned because Malekzadeh is understood to be a political ally of Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, the president’s chief of staff and the man most politicians love to hate.
Legislators called Salehi before the Majlis to question him about the appointment and demand Malekzadeh be fired. Salehi said he would fire Malekzadeh if he was convicted of any crime but not because some people said he might face trial. That didn’t satisfy the angry deputies. Malekzadeh read the handwriting on the wall and submitted his resignation to Salehi Tuesday.
The opposition to the president has not shown any reluctance to focus directly on the president. But it is also damning many in the crowd with which he has surrounded himself. The rhetoric talks about a “deviant group” surrounding the president.
The chief target has been Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, who runs the president’s immediate office as chief of staff. He is accused of sorcery and witchcraft and violating the tenets of Islam. Some newspapers have published allegations that Mashai claims to be in personal contact with the 12th Imam. Mashai has not denied that allegation or others against him. Mashai appears to have gone to ground in hopes that the attacks on him will subside if he doesn’t appear in public.
The secondary target as been Hamid Baqai, 42, who was forced to resign as head of the Iran Cultural Heritage and Tourism Office after the Judiciary said he could not hold public office because of repeated offenses that were not explained.
First Vice President Mohammad-Reza Rahimi, 62, has also come under attack, with numerous charges of corruption and personal aggrandizement being leveled against. One allegation asserts he embezzled $1 billion in state funds, a charge he has denied.
The heavy political warfare began April 17 when Ahmadi-nejad tried to fire Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi, 54, reportedly because he had placed a bug in Mashai’s office. But Khamenehi overruled the firing and ordered Moslehi to stay in office. Ahmadi-nejad lost his temper and went on strike, refusing to come to his office for seven days. He then realized that was a mistake, but the opposition to him was by then solidified and had moved into high gear. He has been in retreat ever since.
While Ahmadi-nejad is mostly playing defense now, he hasn’t abandoned the offense entirely. Last week, he took a sideswipe at Moslehi. The intelligence minister had earlier been named to the Monetary and Credit Council, a key economic body. Ahmadi-nejad has now dumped Moslehi from that council.
Ahmadi-nejad’s five retreats since returning from his strike on May 1 are as follows:
• Submitting to the Majlis a plan for merging the Housing and Transport Ministries after weeks of saying he could do that on his own authority.
• Accepting the ruling that Hamid Baqai could no longer head the Iran Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization because of unspecified misbehavior.
• Agreeing not to go to the latest OPEC meeting in an effort to retain his self-appointment as acting oil minister.
• Rescinding his appointment of himself as acting oil minister after days objecting to the Council of Guardians’ decision that he couldn’t be acting minister.
• Agreeing to the creation of a Ministry of Sports & Youth after long opposition to the law creating the ministry.
