When he appeared to be putting Iran's heritage in front of the country's Islamic heritage, he annoyed the clergy in Qom. He made speeches as long as Fidel Castro. I've been to them. He wasn't careful with money on his heritage projects. There were allegations of financial mismanagement; that he didn't keep good records."

When Ahmadinejad "won" the 2009 election, Ayatollah Khamenei said the poll was fair, but then Ahmadinejad said he wanted Rahim-Mashaee to be vice-president – even before he announced his cabinet. He was persuaded to drop the idea.

During his first term, he had appointed Akbar Ajaii as his minister of intelligence; he stayed for almost all of Ahmadinejad's first four-year term but constantly criticised Rahim-Mashaee's influence over the president. Then just two weeks be

fore the 2009election, Ahmadinejad fired him. This was a deliberate insult: he could have waited another two weeks and then dropped Ajaii.

Another opponent remarked: "People began to ask Ahmadinejad to get rid of Rahim Mashaee; even the 'marja', the highest Shia religious authority, asked him to. We thought Ahmadinejad would give way. But he didn't. Anyone in the cabinet who criticised Rahim-Mashaee got fired. They would criticise him one day – and the next day they didn't have a job. So in Iran today, some people say that Rahim-Mashaee has cast some kind of spell over Ahmadinejad – that he has captured Ahmadinejad's mind. It's unusual for anyone to resist all this pressure."

In Iran, a president is expected to share power – on the principle that your enemies will increase