Ahmadinejad Faces Economic Woes

TEHRAN, Iran — Icy weather is causing big political trouble for Iran's hard-line president, who is under attack for mismanaging the economy as the country runs perilously low on gas for heat.

More than 60 people have died in the cold, some because of gas shortages in remote and mountainous villages, and even Iran's supreme leader has implicitly rebuked his one-time protege.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was openly humiliated when state radio read a decree by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday ordering him to implement a law approved by Parliament to supply more natural gas to remote villages.

Mr. Ahmadinejad had balked — for budgetary reasons — at Parliament's order to spend $1 billion from the country's currency reserve fund to supply the gas. But Mr. Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters under Iran's complicated system, overruled him.

"This was an unprecedented real hit to Ahmadinejad's government," a political analyst in Tehran, Saeed Laylaz, said.

The Iranian leader has struggled politically for months, as one-time supporters joined critics in saying he should focus on Iran's economy rather than on confrontations with the West. Yesterday, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany agreed on a new draft resolution to tighten sanctions against Iran over the country's refusal to suspend its nuclear program, officials said. Ironically, Iran has the world's second-largest natural gas fields after Russia. The country produces more than 15.75 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, all consumed domestically.

The exact cause of the current shortage was unclear, but demand clearly spiked because of the cold weather. Many critics say production could easily have been doubled long before this, if managed correctly by the government.

Many view high inflation and shortages of gas and bread as particularly bitter because Iran should be flush with oil revenues right now, from high world oil prices.

More than 80% of the government's revenues come from oil, and Mr. Ahmadinejad had campaigned on a platform to help the poor.