The Associated Press, September 1, 2008 – A top conservative cleric close to Iran’s supreme leader took President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to task for mismanaging the economy, in remarks published Sunday.
Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri said the president’s policies are threatening to keep Iran from achieving its goal of becoming a regional superpower by 2025.
“Goals of the 20-year plan won’t materialize under the present policies unless executive officials really change (their) views,” newspapers quoted Nateq Nouri as saying in a banking conference in Tehran.
The powerful cleric’s comments came just a week after supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei strongly backed Ahmadinejad, praising him for “standing up” to the West and urging him to plan for a second four-year term.
Nateq Nouri, a close confident of Khamenei, said the supreme leader’s strong support for Ahmadinejad didn’t mean the president was immune from criticism.
Moderate conservatives and reformers have blasted Ahmadinejad in recent months, saying his economic policies failed to improve Iran’s economy.
Earlier this month, the still-powerful former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, lambasted Ahmadinejad’s handling of the economy, blaming him for gas shortages in winter and power cuts during summer.
Ahmadinejad is being challenged not only by reformers but by the same conservatives who paved the way for his stunning victory in 2005 presidential elections. Even conservatives say Ahmadinejad has concentrated too much on fiery, anti-U.S. speeches and not enough on the economy _ and they have become more aggressive in calling him to account.