Ahmadinejad plans to retire from Iranian politics in 2013: Report

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad plans to leave politics after his second term ends in 2013, according to a report in a German newspaper. “Two terms in office is enough,” Ahmadinejad told Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung in its July 16 edition.The Iranian constitution stipulates that a president can only run for two terms. Ahmadineijad also told the newspaper that he does not intend to follow the example of his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, by seeking to return to the presidency in the 2017 elections.Russia, a close ally to Iran, saw Putin return to the presidency in an election that was reportedly rigged after he had served as prime minister from 1999 to 2000. Ahmadinejad, an engineer, said he would not seek to form a political party and would instead “return to scientific work” at a university.But he said that he would engage in political activity at university. Ahmadinejad is the main political leader of the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran, a coalition of conservative political groups in the country and has long been a controversial figure. Iran witnessed the “Green Revolution” in 2009 when protests swept the Islamic republic’s cities denouncing Ahmadinejad’s electoral win as fraudulent. The protesters showed their support for reformist candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi.Before his ascend to presidency in 2005, Iran was under the leadership of the reformer leader Mohammed Khatami.