Tension in Iran as president loses ally

A CLOSE ally of the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been arrested, Iranian news agencies have reported, suggesting a power struggle between the president and the country's highest religious leader is deepening.

The semi-official state news agency, Fars, did not specify the reason for the arrest of Mohammad Sharif Malekzadeh, who resigned as deputy Foreign Minister this week, but a report by the Mehr, another semi-official agency, pointed to allegations of financial misdeeds.

Mr Malekzadeh is believed to be the most senior ally of Mr Ahmadinejad to be arrested - and one of the first to have his arrest reported in Iran's press - as the rift between the president and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the nation's spiritual leader and highest authority, has worsened since April.

Mr Ahmadinejad has been challenged on each of his cabinet appointments, including those of oil minister, sports minister and foreign minister.

Mr Malekzadeh stepped down on Tuesday after only three days in his post in the face of growing opposition from members of the Iranian parliament, who threatened to impeach the Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, if he did not dismiss Mr Malekzadeh.

The President's close allies, who include Mr Malekzadeh, have been accused of being part of a ''deviant current'' of disloyalty that runs counter to that of Ayatollah Khamenei and other clerics in the country's conservative theocracy.

As a result, many former allies have fled the President, proclaiming their allegiance to the Supreme Leader.

While such breaches are a common element of a political system that allows for two leaders - one spiritual, the other democratic - the split has been unusually public since April, when Mr Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader sparred over the fate of the country's Intelligence Minister, Heydar Moslehi.

The president fired the minister, only to watch as Ayatollah Khamenei reinstated him with a warning that Mr Ahmadinejad, too, could be dismissed.

''The game they are playing now is Mr Ahmadinejad trying to politically manoeuvre himself to gain more power, while Khamenei tries to contain him,'' said Mustafa el-Labbad, director of Al Sharq Centre for Regional and Strategic Studies in Cairo.

''It is a struggle motivated by politics and economics, being presented by some as an ideological and spiritual struggle.''

Mr Ahmadinejad was elected twice using Ayatollah Khamenei's political machine.

But he wanted to build his own patronage system and funding source, separate from the intelligence network loyal to the Supreme Leader, to elect candidates in next year's parliamentary elections and most importantly, in the 2013 presidential race, say Iran experts.

Political analysts cautioned that the rift, while deep, was unlikely to devolve into a permanent rupture.

''The President now knows he lacks institutional power to challenge the prerogatives of the Supreme Leader,'' said Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Iran adviser to the Obama administration. ''And Khamenei appreciates that an impeachment crisis would prove destabilising for the system. Thus, a weakened Mr Ahmadinejad who stays in his lane is good for the Supreme Leader.''

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald