Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has said he does not want to run for president after his current term ends, but an Iranian lawmaker accused him of planning a Vladimir Putin-like power grab in 2017 to exploit a loophole in the country’s constitutional limit.
Iran, similar to Russia, does not allow a president to serve three consecutive terms, meaning Ahmadinejad would be eligible to run in in 2017.
Speculation regarding Ahmadinejad’s plans arose when he was asked in an interview with Iranian state TV on September 4, what his final year in power would be like. “How do you know it will be the final year?” he replied, according to Radio Free Asia.
In June, he told a German newspaper that he would exit politics after his term ends in 2013.
After the comments last Tuesday, Iranian lawmaker Mohammad Dehghan accused Ahmadinejad of trying to make a power grab in a manner similar to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Putin served two terms as the Russian president and then acted as prime minister while he backed his close ally, Dmitry Medvedev, who was elected president. Putin was then elected president for a third term earlier this year, but faces a chorus of criticism from opposition groups.
“The president should know he is not Putin and he has no one qualified enough to play the Medvedev part,” Dehghan added, according to the Iran Independent News Service.
It has been speculated that Ahmadinejad’s chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei, could serve as president.
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