Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Thursday, August 06, 2009

Inauguration in Tehran

As Ahmadinejad Is Sworn In for 2nd Term, Deep Fissures Are Laid Bare
With his adversaries boycotting the ceremony and a vast deployment of police officers standing guard outside, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sworn into office on Wednesday...

The inauguration ceremony itself exposed deep rifts in Iran’s ruling elite. Many seats were empty, with most of Parliament’s reform faction boycotting the event, according to Parlamaan News, a reformist Web site. Several reformists who did attend walked out as the president began his speech. Leading opposition figures, including the presidential candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi and the former presidents Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, also stayed away...

Mr. Ahmadinejad must form a cabinet in the next two weeks, and his choices will signal much about the direction his second term will take. He is likely to face rising dissent from within his own conservative camp, as he did last month during a heated fracas over his first appointments. His government will also be struggling to put down a defiant opposition movement that maintains that his landslide June 12 re-election was rigged, and has continued to mount street protests...

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