BEIRUT, Lebanon — In a sign of persistent fissures within Iran’s conservative ranks, Iran’s supreme leader has told President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to reverse his decision to appoint a top deputy, according to comments reported by Iranian news agencies on Tuesday.
Also on Tuesday, scattered opposition rallies took place in Tehran, the capital, and other cities, with a heavy presence by the police and members of the Basij militia apparently discouraging many from taking to the streets to protest Iran’s disputed June 12 election.
A senior member of Parliament said the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had sent a letter to Mr. Ahmadinejad telling him to dismiss the deputy, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, whose appointment was announced Friday, according to news reports.
“Without any delay, the removal or acceptance of Mashaei’s resignation must be announced by the president,” the deputy speaker of Parliament, Mohammad-Hassan Aboutorabi-Fard, told the ISNA news agency.
The appointment had provoked a storm of criticism from conservatives, who were angered last year when Mr. Mashaei reportedly said that the Iranian people were friends with all other peoples, including Israelis.
As late as Tuesday, Mr. Ahmadinejad had defended Mr. Mashaei — whose daughter is married to his son — and said he would keep him on. Cabinet appointments do not require the approval of the Iranian Parliament. Mr. Mashaei tried to defend himself, saying he meant that Iranians were friends of those who suffered under Zionist oppression in Israel and that his comments were “a psychological warfare against the Israeli regime.”
But what appeared to be the intervention of Ayatollah Khamenei, who wields final authority on affairs of state, would seem to seal the matter. Conservatives largely closed ranks after the presidential election, which set off the worst internal unrest since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. But as Mr. Ahmadinejad begins appointing his new cabinet, splits among conservatives have surfaced again.
On Tuesday evening, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported that Mr. Ahmadinejad might make as many as 19 changes to the cabinet, including the key posts of foreign minister, finance minister and intelligence minister.
The cabinet changes are being closely watched for signs that Mr. Ahmadinejad might be making conciliatory gestures toward some of his critics. Many in the conservative and the reformist ranks have called for such signals, observing that the election has deepened a serious political and social rift in Iran.
Supporters of the leading opposition candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, say that Mr. Ahmadinejad’s landslide election was rigged. Their protest movement, largely quelled by a heavy police crackdown, has gained new energy since Friday, when an influential former president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, delivered a speech urging the government to recognize a broad lack of public confidence in the results.
Opposition Web sites had issued calls for widespread demonstrations on Tuesday, the anniversary of a day in 1952 when huge street protests took place to reinstate Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, a national hero in Iran.
There were scattered protests in Tehran, Shiraz and other cities on Tuesday, according to reports by witnesses and video clips posted on opposition Web sites. But they appeared to have been quickly suppressed by the police. In Tehran, witnesses said the police and the Basij militia used sticks and tear gas to disperse protesters in Haft-e-Tir Square in the center of the city.
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