By Agence France Presse (AFP)
TEHRAN: Iran's supreme leader endorsed the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a ceremony boycotted by leading moderates in protest at a disputed poll that plunged Iran into its worst crisis since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Two former presidents, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, who backed defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, did not attend Monday's ceremony although they had been present at such events in the past, Iranian media reported.
"I am endorsing the presidency of this brave, hard-working and wise man as the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, in praise of Ahmadinejad who will be sworn in by Parliament on Wednesday.
The supreme leader hailed Ahmadinejad's "unprecedented" victory on June 12, but he warned Ahmadinejad that the "angry, wounded opposition" would continue challenging his government and told him to heed the views of his critics, in a possible reference to a row between the president and his own conservative supporters.
Khamenei also prevented the president from kissing his hand - a gesture that made the front-pages when Ahmadinejad won four years ago - granting only an awkward kiss on his shoulder, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Ahmadinejad, 52, whose first four years put him on a collision course with the West, again lashed out at "selfish and meddling" foreign governments over the election crisis.
"You do not want a new model of divine democracy rising in the world. You wanted to divert global opinion from the collapse of capitalism, so you insulted the Iranian people," the Fars news agency quoted him as saying.
"Whether you like it or not, the sun of justice has dawned upon the world and the government of justice will prevail."
After the ceremony hundreds of Mousavi supporters, some of them honking car horns, headed toward a central Tehran square where they planned to protest. Dozens of riot police and Basij militia had assembled to prevent any demonstration but were not intervening, the witness said.
Other leading moderate figures joined Rajsanfani, who has declared the country in crisis, and Khatami in missing the formal endorsement.
Ahmadinejad's victory for a second term led reformists and moderate candidates Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi to accuse the government of electoral fraud, caused violent protests and exposed deep schisms within Iran's clerical and political elite.
The president now faces the difficult task of assembling a cabinet which is acceptable to the mostly conservative parliament, which may object if he just picks members of his inner circle. Parliament has in the past rejected some of Ahmadinejad's cabinet choices.
The supreme leader endorsed the June 12 election result and demanded an end to the protests at which more than 20 people have been killed.
At the ceremony Khamenei criticized Ahmadinejad's opponents, saying "some elites failed [the political test of] the election," state television said.
The president told rivals Friday that trying to split him from Khamenei was futile because they were like father and son.
Iranian officials have denied any fraud in the election, in which Ahmadinejad was declared to have won 63 percent of 40 million votes cast against 34 percent for Mousavi, in the face of persistent objections by moderates and reformers.
Without Khamenei's support, Ahmadinejad's choice of cabinet could run into trouble as a number of lawmakers have been critical of Ahmadinejad's decisions since the vote.
His appointment as vice president of a man mistrusted by hardliners for remarks on Israel and for hosting an event they deemed un-Islamic prompted a veto from Khamenei last month.
Ahmadinejad veered close to defying the supreme leader by delaying a week before obeying his order and then naming the same man, Esfendiar Rahim-Mashaie, as his chief of staff.
He also sacked his hardline intelligence minister, who had criticized his actions, while his culture minister resigned.
The power struggle can only hamper the leadership's ability to tackle the Islamic Republic's economic problems, as well as the row over the nuclear program, which Iran says is for energy but which the West suspects is aimed at bomb-making.
Another potential source of friction with the United States arose on Saturday when Iran arrested three American hikers who an Iraqi Kurdish official said had strayed across the border.
Adding to tense relations with the West, Tehran has accused Western powers of fuelling post-election unrest, particularly the US and Britain which deny the charges. "The enemies [the West] should not think that they can bring the Islamic republic to its knees by such small deeds," Khamenei said at the official ceremony, adding: "They should face up to the facts in Iran." - with AFP
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