Assessing Ahmadinejad's closed circle

"Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are," the saying goes and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's second cabinet surely says a good deal about who he is. Ahmadinejad presented his 21-minister cabinet to parliament in two rounds: 20 August 2009, where 18 of his cabinet candidates gained a parliamentary vote of confidence thanks to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's intervention, and on 15 November 2009 where the cabinet was completed. In addition, since the 12 June election, Ahmadinejad has appointed 14 vice-presidents and advisers by presidential decree, bringing his immediate network up to 35, as reported by the Iranian presidency's website.

Ahmadinejad has moved away from the political traditions and elites of the past. His first cabinet (2005-09), which was characterised by the highest number of shuffles in government since 1979, boasted 29 appointments. Ahmadinejad's second cabinet displays the same pattern as his first. Ahmadinejad's cabinet ministers, along with his vice-presidents and advisers, are recruited from a closed circuit composed of his fellow Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST) alumni, local government and security executives serving in northwest Iran in the 1980s, IRGC officers who received civilian academic degrees from IUST in the 1990s, those who served Ahmadinejad during his brief tenure as Tehran mayor (2003-05) and a few family members. Such a small network has its advantages, but may also force Ahmadinejad to adopt extreme measures to balance powerful political rivals.