Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, already facing allegations from the opposition that his election as Iran’s president was built on fraud, has picked a new fight – this time with some who supported his re-election.
Iran’s fundamentalist president announced last week that one of his closest allies, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, was to be first vice-president – essentially his right-hand man. Mr Mashaei has been one of the most controversial figures in Iranian politics since he suggested last year that Iran was a “friend of [the] Israeli people”. The comments were met with a wave of condemnation from conservative and fundamentalist figures opposed to the Jewish state.
