Ahmadinejad's assets: a 30-year-old car

02 Jan, 2006

Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has an empty bank account and a 30-year-old car, according to a list of his worldly possessions published in the local press on Sunday.
The list of his assets includes a 40-year-old 175-square-meter (1,900-square-foot) house in a lower-middle class district in eastern Tehran, a white 1977 Peugeot 504 and two checking accounts.
One account was used to receive pay checks from his old job as a university professor and the other is empty, dating back to the time when he was governor-general in the western province of Ardebil.
Ahmadinejad, 48, who won an election in June pledging to be a "people's president" and friend of the poor, had to provide the list to the head of the judiciary in accordance with the country's constitution.
The basic law stipulates that the head of the judiciary must examine the assets of top officials including the supreme leader, cabinet ministers and their immediate families to ensure that no one has become richer through illegal means while in office.
Information about the assets of the other officials has not yet been made public. Ahmadinejad, a political unknown since he became Tehran mayor in 2003, is a religious conservative who has never lost an opportunity to emphasis his humble lifestyle.

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