TEHRAN, IRAN—The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his ultra conservative spiritual leader do not rely on people’s votes to elect government officials. Instead, the Iranian cleric led regime relies on divine legitimacy and argues it is not the people but God who elects the Iranian President.
In a meeting of provincial council in Tehran, the Iranian President stated that his successor is already chosen by God.
Ahmadinejad was reported saying “several friends had come and were saying, ‘We’re worried about the future.’ I said, ‘The future has been decided, go do your work, the result will come.’ [One of them] said, ‘Who’s the next one?’ I said, ‘Do you think God doesn’t know who’s next?’ He said [yes, he knows]. I said, ‘So why are you sad? The time is over when they could rule people through factional games.”
Ahmadinejad is the former mayor of Tehran whose ascendency to power was propelled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. He succeeded his opponents and was re-elected into a second term that touched off a massive uprising and led to accusations of fraud by his opponents.
Ahmadinejad told supporters that he was confident of his re-election and predicted his divinely ordained victory one week before the official results were announced.
“I kept saying before the 2009 election that a big event is on the way,” Ahmadinejad said. He added “after the vote someone came and asked me, ‘What was the big event?’ I said, ‘is there any event bigger than this?”
The Iranian President did not mention the name of his successor but some speculate that he is pushing for his current aide, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, to succeed him as president.
Ahmadinejad is barred from running for a third term due to term limits. However, Mashaei is a controversial figure in the Iranian politics and not favored by the ultra conservative cleric establishment.
An ultra conservative cleric,AyatollahMesbah Yazdi, stated last year that Iranian cleric led government has divine legitimacy and added “who are the people to give someone the right [to rule]?”
AyatollahMesbah Yazdi is the spiritual leader to the Iranian President.
According to Yazdi and other like-minded clerics, the people have no say in who governs Iran.
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