Today.Az » Politics » Mahmoud Ahmadinejad officially endorsed as Iranian president
03 August 2009 [12:18] - Today.Az
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday formally endorsed hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president for a new four-year term amid intense political turmoil in the Islamic republic, AFP reported.
But in a sign of the escalating feud between rival political factions over Ahmadinejad's hotly disputed re-election, opposition leaders were absent from the ceremony, state-owned Al-Alam television said.
"The supreme leader appointed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the president of the Islamic Republic for a second term," the Arabic-language channel said.
"Iranian people have voted in favour of a fight against arrogance, to confront destitution and spread justice," it quoted Khamenei as saying.
But among those who did not attend were Ahmadinejad's defeated rivals Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, powerful cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and former reformist president Mohammad Khatami, it said.
Ahmadinejad, 52, is due to be sworn in before parliament on Wednesday following his June 12 election win, but is under fire from his own hardline camp, which has questioned his loyalty to Khamenei.
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