Ahmadinejad’s confidant remains presidential possibility

TEHRAN: With a growing list of hopefuls to replace Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the campaign’s most intriguing candidate may be a man who has not even announced whether he will run in the Islamic republic’s June 14 election.
Powerful and mysterious, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei is, by most accounts, Ahmadinejad’s most trusted adviser — but he is also divisive, reviled and distrusted by traditional conservatives, and was once deemed unfit for office by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“The rules of the game have been known and largely followed for three decades, and the cutthroat nature of Iranian politics is now being shaped by the Ahmadinejad camp repeatedly pushing the boundaries of what’s acceptable by the Islamic republic’s own standards,” said Reza Marashi, research director at the National Iranian American Council in Washington.
Mashaei served briefly as Iran’s vice president in 2009, when Ahmadinejad, showing defiance in response to Khamenei’s decree, appointed Mashaei as his chief of staff. He now represents Iran as head of the Non-Aligned Movement, a group of about 120 countries whose presidency rotates among its members.
Regarded as a pragmatist, Mashaei has cast himself as a nationalist and a moderate who is open to expanding cooperation with Iran’s longtime foes.