Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei officially endorsed President Ahmadinejad on Monday for his second term in office. Ahmadinejad was declared the victor of the disputed elections that took place on June 12th in which he allegedly won almost two-thirds of the vote. In the ceremony marking the official start of his second term in office, Ahmadinejad announced that he will continue a proactive policy in his second term. He stated, “Proactive presence in the international arena is a national duty. It is not possible to build Iran without a strong presence in the international arena.” As reported in the Fars News Agency:
Ahmadinejad further underlined that the Iranian nation should have an active participation in the management of the world affairs, and added, “The era when a number of bullying powers dictated their rules and attitudes to the (other) nations is over now.”
Elsewhere, President Ahmadinejad lambasted interference by certain foreign states in Iran’s internal affairs during the June 12 presidential election, and urged them to avoid meddling in the other countries’ domestic affairs.
The president also reiterated that the Iranian nation supports justice-based dialogue and logic, and warned, “This glorious nation will not tolerate the dishonesty and selfishness of certain states.”
According to the Mehr News Agency, the Judiciary chief, the Majlis speaker, the Guardian Council secretary as well as political and military officials, the Majlis MPs, the Assembly of Experts representatives, and some foreign ambassadors were present at the ceremony. Mohsen Rezai, an unsuccessful conservative presidential candidate and former head of the Revolutionary Guards who had previously challenged the outcome of the election, also attended the ceremony.
But there were many notable absentees as well. The main opposition candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, his ally Mehdi Karroubi and Hasan Khomeini, a reformist and the grandson of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, all stayed away from the ceremony. Two former presidents, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, who backed Mousavi in the vote, were also not at the ceremony. While Ahmadinejad might officially be the President, the controvery surrounding the election is far from over.
Photo taken from the Fars News Agency.
