Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is running out of time, friends, and luck. Presidential elections will be held in June 2009, but Ahmadinejad has still not delivered on his 2005 election promises of “bringing the oil money to the tables of the people.” In a recent televised interview, the Iranian president assured the public that he would distribute the oil wealth of the country before the next presidential elections, “even if I have to do it at my last day in office,” hardly an assuring message to the impoverished Iranians whose’ cause Ahmadinejad claims to advance.
Apart from betraying the trust of the “downtrodden,” Ahmadinejad has also alienated the Islamic Republic’s religious and political elites. Unable to resolve the problems arising from Iran’s command economy, Ahmadinejad attacks the clerical and bureaucratic establishment of the Islamic Republic. Not a week passes without the president or his proxies disclosing secrets about economic and morally corrupt celebrities. But, apart from naming and shaming, the Ahmadinejad government does little to prosecute the alleged criminals who all seem to be among the ranks of his critics. The Ahmadinejad government has also not shown interest in fighting the root causes of corruption: Lack of transparency and the patronage system permeating all levels of political life in the Islamic Republic. In reality, Ahmadinejad’s blame game has not other purpose than deflecting responsibility for mismanagement of the economy. His strategy has neither resolved the inflation problem, provided bread for the poor or affordable rent for the middle class, nor gained the president friends.
In the last week, fortune seems to have finally turned her back to Ahmadinejad. As the head of the executive branch, the Iranian president enjoys the prerogative of appointing ministers. But, as in most other things in the Islamic Republic, the president must share his prerogative with various centers of power. Unofficially, the Supreme Leader appoints the intelligence minister and interior minister. Former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, still among the Islamic Republic’s most powerful politicians with special interest in the economy and trade, exerts influence over the appointment of oil minister. Ahmadinejad’s original cabinet in 2005 reflected the influence exerted by various centers of power.
But as he grew confident — perhaps overconfident — in power, Ahmadinejad has cleansed his government of ministers who had been imposed on him by others, giving him the Islamic Republic record as the president presiding over the most government shuffles. The fact that the Iranian parliament must give a vote of confidence to each new minister adds to the complexity of this process. a
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