Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad plans to retire from politics when his
second term ends next year, AFP quoted him as saying on Saturday in an interview
with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, scheduled to be published on
Sunday.
“Eight years is enough,” Ahmadinejad, 55, told the German
paper.
Iran’s constitution prohibits a president from serving more than
two consecutive terms, but Ahmadinejad also ruled out the possibility that he
would let someone serve one term and then return to office four years later, as
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently did.
Ahmadinejad said that he
would likely return to academia. “Maybe I’ll involve myself in politics
at the university, but I will not form a political party or group,” he
said.
Relations between Ahmadinejad and parliament have become
increasingly strained in recent years, particularly over budget
matters. The legislature, which has the power to impeach the president,
accused him of economic mismanagement and making illegal appointments.
In
March, he became the first president in the Islamic Republic’s history to be
summoned to the assembly for questioning.
Ahmadinejad served as Tehran’s
mayor before being elected president in 2005. He was reelected in 2009 in an
election that was widely thought to be fraudulent. The allegedly rigged election
was followed by eight months of street protests that the Iranian government
violently quelled.
Ahmadinejad was an engineer and a former Revolutionary
Guard officer before being elected Teheran’s mayor in 2003.
Reuters
contributed to this report.