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      BFF
“A blazing row has erupted between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and parliament speaker Ali Larijani over the restructuring of ministries, media reports said on Thursday, in a fresh sign of tension in Iran’s ruling conservative camp. The row comes shortly after an unprecedented rift surfaced between Ahmadinejad and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei which saw the president disappear from public life for nearly two weeks. Larijani, an ardent critic of the president who was defeated by Ahmadinejad in 2005 presidential elections, publicly accused the president on Wednesday of “violating the law” by not following parliamentary procedures on the merger of ministries. “If the government has ambiguities in understanding the law, the parliament can explain the law to the government,” the reformist Arman newspaper on Thursday quoted Larijani as saying in sharp remarks aimed at Ahmadinejad. At the centre of the row are government proposals to merge several ministries, including energy and oil, so as to reduce their numbers to 17 from 21 in accordance with a overarching five year plan……..”

No sooner was the powder dry from his losing skirmish with Khamenei than Ahmadinejad was in another fight, this time with Parliament and its Speaker Ali Larijani. This one is also about the allocation of power. But this is a rehash: presidents are always in a struggle with legislatures, just ask Mr. Obama. It seems that Mr. Ahmadinejad has serious problems with people named Ali. It is also notable that as we get closer to the next election round in Iran, these political and policy tensions erupt into public disputes. It is a common fight between the executive and legislative branches of government over political turf and policy goals.
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mhg



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