Iran leader approves Alunadinejad presidency I Reuters http://www.reuters.coni/article/topNews/id1JSTRE572OST2009O8O3?p...
Iran leader approves Ahmadinejad ____
presidency
Mon Aug 3, 2009 9:05am EDT
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By Parisa Hafezi
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei formally endorsed
the second term presidency of Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad on Monday after a disputed
election that plunged Iran into its worst
crisis since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The results, which leading reformists and
00 i of 5 Full Size moderate defeated candidates Mirhossein
Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi said were
rigged to ensure victory for the hardline
Ahmadinejad, led to violent protests and deep schisms within Iran's
clerical and political elite.
Leading opposition figures and two former presidents, Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, who backed Mousavi in the vote,
were not at the ceremony although they had attended such events in the
past, Iranian media reported.
“The official ceremony was held and Supreme Leader (Ayatollah All
Khamenei) approved MrAhmadinejad's presidency, al-Alam state
television said. taxes
Ahmadinejad will be sworn in by parliament on Wednesday.
He then faces the hard task of forming a cabinet that will be acceptable to
the mostly conservative parliament, which may object if he names only
members of his inner circle. Parliament has in the past rejected some of
Ahmadinejad's cabinet choices.
Mousavi and Karoubi say the next government will be illegitimate.
Khamenei has endorsed the June 12 election result and demanded an end
to the protests at which more than 20 people have been killed.
Iranian officials deny any fraud in the election, in which Ahmadinejad was
declared to have won 63 percent of 40 million votes cast, against 34
percent for Mousavi.
Part of Iran's influential Shi'ite clerical establishment has also signaled
misgivings over the aftermath of the poll, which has touched off the
country's worst internal upheaval since the 1979 revolution.
ROUGH RIDE
Without Khamenei's support, any cabinet list could get a very rough ride
as many lawmakers have been critical of Ahmadinejad since the vote.
The power struggle can only hamper the leadership's ability to tackle the
Islamic Republic's economic problems, as well as the struggle over its
nuclear program, which Iran says is only peaceful, but which the West
suspects is aimed at bomb-making.
In an apparent effort to deter street protests, Iran on Saturday put 100
protesters, including several senior moderate figures, on trial. They face a
range of charges, including acting against national security, which is
punishable by death.
Rights groups say hundreds of people, including senior pro-reform
politicians, journalists and lawyers, have been detained since the election.
The mass trial of reformists has no precedent in revolutionary Iran's
30-year history. The trial resumes on Thursday.
Leading reformers, including Khatami, have rejected what they say is a
show trial and said some defendants had made confessions under duress.
Many of the defendants have spent weeks in jail without access to
lawyers, Mousavi said on Sunday. He said the trial was “an awkward
preparation” for the start of Ahmadinejad's new term.
Even some hardliners have criticized the trial and the official portrayal of
the protesters as people determined to overthrow Iran's system of
govern ment.
Some defendants, including Khatami's vice-president Mohammad Ali
Abtahi, told the court that they were wrong to have said the vote was
fraudulent.
(Writing by Parisa Hafezi, Editing by Samia Nakhoul)
© Thomaon Reuters 2009 All righta reserved
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