God's representative in Tehran sees off 12th Shia imam fan

international | anti-capitalism | other press Thursday May 19, 2011 19:34 by Yassamine Mather

Stranger and stranger. Cabinet ministers fired, the number of ministeries reduced. Accusations of sorcery, jinns (genies). But as Yassamine Mather writes:

...however, for all the references to supernatural beings, the conflict has its roots in a good, old-fashioned power struggle between, on the one side, landed old money, senior ayatollahs and their periphery and, on the other, what they call tazeh bedoran ressideh ha (the nouveaux riches or new rich) in the Ahmadinejad camp.

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Security services have begun censoring pro-Ahmadinejad websites, accusing them of “endangering national security, espionage and leaks”. Abbas Ghaffari, described by the religious establishment as Ahmadinejad’s “exorcist” or “jinn-catcher”, was among a number of people arrested. The website Ayandeh described one president ally as “a man with special skills in metaphysics and connections with the unknown worlds”.

All this comes after the release of an Iranian documentary, The appearance is imminent, celebrating the expected ‘return’ of the Mahdi - the 12th or ‘hidden’ imam of the 9th century. Both Ahmadinejad and Khamenei are praised for paving the way for this happy event.