Iran supreme leader endorses Ahmadinejad second term

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* Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Iran supreme leader endorses Ahmadinejad second term

• Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be sworn in on Wednesday

• Khamenei approval comes seven weeks after election

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* Peter Walker
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 3 August 2009 08.34 BST
* Article history

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Mashhad on 31 July 2009.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Mashhad last week. Photograph: Reuters

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, formally endorsed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's second term as president today, seven weeks after bitterly disputed elections prompted mass protests and deep divisions within the country's elite.

Ahmadinejad, who according to official results took 63% of the votes cast in the 12 June poll, received Khameni's approval this morning, state-owned al-Alam television reported, giving few details.

He will be sworn in by the country's mainly conservative parliament on Wednesday, and will have a fortnight to submit his cabinet list to the legislature.

The opposition says Ahmadinejad and his supporters stole the election from the main opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, through fraud. The official results said Mousavi had won 34% of the 40m votes cast.

Ahmadinejad's re-election saw hundreds of thousands of Iranians take to the streets in protest. At least 30 people died and hundreds of demonstrators were imprisoned.

More than 100 opposition members and activists accused of being involved in post-election violence appeared in court in Tehran at the weekend for the start of what opponents of the government claim is a mass show trial.

According to Iranian media reports, the charges include rioting, attacking military and government buildings and conspiring against the ruling system. Many defendants had spent weeks in jail without access to lawyers, Mousavi said yesterday.

The unrest, Iran's worst since the 1979 Islamic revolution, continued late last week as police fired teargas and wielded batons to disperse thousands of anti-government protesters attending a graveside memorial for victims of the crackdown. Police stopped Mousavi and hundreds of his supporters as they tried to reach the grave of Neda Soltan, the young woman who became a symbol of the protest movement after her death was captured on video.

Ahmadinejad, 52, faces divisions within his own political support base, and the disputed election has exposed rifts within the clergy, with several senior clerics siding with the opposition.