TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad caved into pressure from hard-line clerics and the country’s supreme leader yesterday and allowed the resignation of his top deputy after a weeklong standoff.
For days, the president had resisted pressure from hard-liners, including a direct order from the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to dismiss his choice for the key post of first vice president, Esfandiar Rahim Mashai. Last year, Mashai angered the Islamic extremists when he made friendly comments toward Israel.
The final blow, however, appeared to be the public reading on state television of the order issued earlier by Khamenei to dismiss Mashai because he is “contrary to the interest of you and the government.”
The issue created a rare rift between Ahmadinejad and the hard-liners that form the bedrock of his support and comes at a particularly sensitive time as he battles opposition reformists who accuse him of winning the June 12 election through fraud.
“After the announcement of the exalted supreme leader’s order, Mashai doesn’t consider himself first vice president,” presidential aide Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi said.
The resignation capped a day of renewed pressure that featured extremist student street demonstrations and Friday sermons railing against Mashai.
Despite all the pressure, Ahmadinejad had pleaded for more time to explain his reasons for choosing a man he had described as a “pious, caring, honest and creative caretaker for Iran.” Mashai’s son is also married to the president’s daughter.
The president even continued to back his man after Khamenei, his greatest supporter, issued a private order Monday telling him that the appointment “causes a rift and disillusionment among your supporters. The aforementioned appointment must be canceled and consider it null and void.”
Reading the order publicly yesterday dramatically increased the pressure on Ahmadinejad, and further refusal to act would have amounted to a flagrant and public defiance of the supreme leader.