Last week the Iranian parliament reject Ahmadinejad’s budget outright.
Today it suddenly and not so miraculously approved Ahmadinejad’s budget.
So what happened?
Its easy to guess: parliamentarians most probably got orders from the supreme leader’s office to change their stance and they obeyed.
Its understandable why Khamenei did this. Parliamentarians dislike Ahmadinejad, so they decided to make life difficult for him by rejecting his budget. Another day, another cat fight involving Ahmadinejad. Tell me something new.
But Khamenei can’t run an economy with a budget thats in limbo. With sanctions and Ahmadinejad-nomics ravaging Iran’s economy, he needs things to move forward. The latest fight involving Ahmadinejad simply can’t get in the way of the engine that runs the regime – the economy.
The fact that Khamenei has to micro manage things to this level is not good for the long term legitimacy of his position.
The more he gets involved directly, the more he will be blamed directly for the economy’s shortcomings. I say “the more” because Khamenei is already starting to carry increasing blame for his choices, especially his previous support for Ahmadinejad.