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Iran analyst: no accountability makes Ahmadinejad return likely

An Iranian analyst writes that the return of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is likely given the problems within Iran's executive branch.
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (C) waves near the shrine (L) of Prophet Mohammed's grandson Hussein ibn Ali at the Al-Hussein mosque, named after the grandson, in old Cairo February 5, 2013. Ahmadinejad was both kissed and scolded on Tuesday when he began the first visit to Egypt by an Iranian president since Tehran's 1979 Islamic revolution. The trip was meant to underline a thaw in relations since Egyptians elected an Islamist head of state, President Mohamed Mursi, last June. But it also highlighte

At the funeral ceremony of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s mother in the city of Qom on Feb. 22, supporters of the former Iranian president chanted, “On the life of any real man, Ahmadinejad will return.” The return of Ahmadinejad, whether in the 2016 parliamentary elections or back in the president’s seat in 2017, is always a hot topic in Iranian media and leads to wild speculation and analysis.

Sadegh Zibakalam, an outspoken Tehran University professor who is a supporter of President Hassan Rouhani’s negotiations with the West and a target of Iran’s hard-liners, wrote an interesting column in Shargh daily about the likelihood of Ahmadinejad’s return to politics. Rather than focusing on whether or not Ahmadinejad has the political clout or the blessing of the supreme leader to return to politics, he focused on some of the institutional problems within the Iranian executive branch.

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