Ahmadinejad Faces Intra-Party Challenge

[rpannier]

With one year to go before Iran’s next presidential election, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is facing an open and increasingly pointed challenge from rivals within his own conservative camp.

On June 1, Ahmadinejad’s archrival and likely 2009 opponent, Ali Larijani, was elected to the powerful post of speaker of parliament for one year. Within hours of Larijani’s victory, an Iranian media outlet reported allegations that close to $35 billion in oil proceeds — nearly half of Iran’s annual revenue from oil — was missing from government coffers.

“Electioneering has started in earnest,” said Meir Javedanfar, an Israel-based Iran scholar and co-author of a biography of Ahmadinejad. “Larijani wants to expose Ahmadinejad by casting light on corruption and even challenging him on the nuclear issue. In other words, he wants to beat him at his own game.”

snip

...observers say Larijani’s return to power suggests that Khamenei’s support for Ahmadinejad is on the wane. Much of the rising discontent among Iranians is centered on the economic woes the country has endured under Ahmadinejad, but among the ruling clerical elite there is also growing resentment of the president’s frequent invocation of religious principles to justify his policies.

link:
http://www.forward.com/articles/13534/

[napi21]

1. This could be the solution to our Iran problems! If He gets exposed

at HOME for his corruption and raping of his own country, the Iranians will take care of him. Ohhh, I HOPE this takes hold in the media her AND there!

[TheMightyFavog]

2. I've heard that Ahmadinejad isn't that popular amonst his own people.

There were riots in Iran last year when he implemented gasoline rationing to keep people living near the turkish border from buying relatively cheap Iranian gasoline ans selling it across the border in Turkey.