Gathering the news about Iran's 2009 National election in one place.

Employment Change

Iranian President Denies Rift with Supreme Leader (VoA)

Posted Fri, 2009-07-31 15:30 by IRelec09

Iranian President Denies Rift with Supreme Leader: Via Voice of America.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is denying he has any rift with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, days after their public dispute over the dismissal of the vice president.

In a speech Friday, Mr. Ahmadinejad likened their relationship to the ties between father and son.

With protesters continuing to question the legitimacy of Mr. Ahmadinejad's re-election, the conservative president has also faced criticism from his hard-line supporters.

Those critics cast doubt on his loyalty to the supreme leader after Khamenei ordered the dismissal of the first vice president, but Mr. Ahmadinejad delayed carrying out the order.
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Despite uproar, Ahmadinejad appoints Mashaei to new job (PressTV.ir )

Posted Sun, 2009-07-26 15:02 by IRelec09

Despite uproar, Ahmadinejad appoints Mashaei to new job: Via PressTV.ir .

After a weeklong furor amongst Iran's ruling elite over Ahmadinejad's vice president choice, the president appoints the deputy, who resigned, as an advisor and head of the Presidential Office.

"I appoint you [Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei], as a faithful and competent figure, as advisor and head of the Presidential Office," Ahmadinejad said in a decree on Saturday.
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Iranian First VP Resigns After Call for His Dismissal (VoA)

Posted Sat, 2009-07-25 10:45 by IRelec09

Iranian First VP Resigns After Call for His Dismissal: Via Voice of America.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's pick for first vice president has resigned from the post, following a demand from Iran's supreme leader for his dismissal.

Iran's state news agency, IRNA, quotes a top aide to Mr. Ahmadinejad, Mojtaba Samareh-Hashemi, as saying Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie no longer regards himself as first vice president.

Mashaie has been criticized for saying last year that Iran is a friend of all people in the world, including Israelis. Iran does not formally recognize Israel.

Earlier Friday, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered President Ahmadinejad to dismiss Mashaie.
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Maziar Bahari Canadian scapegoat in Iran

Posted Wed, 2009-07-08 10:37 by IRelec09

Maziar Bahari Canadian scapegoat in Iran: Via The Globe and Mail(Canada).

Iran's jailing of Maziar Bahari, a journalist and filmmaker who lived in Canada for 10 years and became a Canadian citizen, carries echoes of a traumatic incident in Canadian-Iranian relations, the arrest and beating death in 2003 of Zahra Kazemi, an Iranian-born photojournalist from Montreal. There is little concrete that Canada can do that will actually have an impact, short of Prime Minister Stephen Harper making the case to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran. He should do so.

Nothing in the 42-year-old Mr. Bahari's background suggests a plotter or conspirator against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
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I Must Go Home to Iran Again (NYTimes - Opinion Marjane Satrapi)

Posted Fri, 2009-07-03 22:48 by IRelec09

Op-Ed Contributor - I Must Go Home to Iran Again - NYTimes.com: Via .

PARIS — Six years ago, I went to listen to a man, whom I will not name, in a café in Paris.

He said it had been 24 years since he had been back to Iran, that he had to leave right after the revolution of 1979 for political reasons.

He talked of many things, and he ended by saying: “Once you leave your homeland, you can live anywhere, but I refuse to die anywhere other than Iran — or else my life will have had no meaning.”

His statement touched me very deeply. I’ve thought about what he said, not just understanding him intellectually but feeling his meaning with all my heart. I, too, was convinced that I must die nowhere other than in my country, Iran, or else my life will also be meaningless.

At the time I heard this man speak, it had already been four years since I had been home.

Yes, I call Iran home because no matter how long I live in France, and despite the fact that I feel also French after all these years, to me the word “home” has only one meaning: Iran.
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Mousavi 'under 24-hour guard'

Posted Tue, 2009-06-23 18:55 by IRelec09

Mousavi 'under 24-hour guard': Via Middle East, World - The Independent(UK).

The Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi is under 24-hour guard by secret police and no longer able to speak freely to supporters, according to the film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf.

Mr Makhmalbaf, 52, an informal spokesman abroad for the protest in Iran, said that Mr Mousavi was not under arrest but "he has security agents, secret police with him all the time. He has to be careful what he says."

In a telephone interview, Mr Makhmalbaf, the director of the 2001 film Kandaha, denied suggestions that the protests against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were losing steam.

"The regime, arguably, is losing ground, not the protests," he said. "Ordinary Iranians are openly rejecting the legitimacy and power of Ayatollah Khamanei. That is entirely new, unheard of."
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