Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (C) waves near the shrine (L) of Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein ibn Ali at the Al-Hussein Mosque, named after the grandson, in the old part of Cairo, Feb. 5, 2013. (photo by REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh)[/caption]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.
Zibakalam wrote that anyone who chants �on the life of any real man, Ahmadinejad will return� has �a correct understanding of the world of politics in Iran.� He added, �Our executive system has two characteristics that make the return of Ahmadinejad likely; first, accountability is not taken very seriously in our executive system.�
Because of the lack of accountability in the executive office, according to Zibakalam, the view of Ahmadinejad�s supporters is that whatever the former president did during his eight years in office was �right and necessary,� and whatever was not done was �also right and necessary.� Given this criteria, no one should expect that Ahmadinejad and his followers would not want his return.
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