Carpets out as Iran president pursues humble image

Reuters:

Wed Aug 24, 2005 4:03 AM ET

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered the removal of dozens of expensive Persian carpets from his office to preserve his modest image, newspapers reported on Wednesday.

The carpets, some of them worth tens of thousands of dollars, will be sent to a museum "in order for his office to have a humble appearance," the conservative Siyasat-e Rouz daily said.

Elected in a landslide in June after promising to redistribute the OPEC heavyweight's oil wealth to the poor, Ahmadinejad has imposed a series of austerity measures since take office earlier this month.

One of his first acts as president was to order state offices not to hang his portrait and he has instructed officials to eschew unnecessary expenditures and luxuries.

The son of a blacksmith, Ahmadinejad's campaign adverts emphasized his humble origins and modest lifestyle, showing him driving himself to work and contrasting his stark, small home with the large villa and swimming pool of his predecessor as mayor of Tehran.

Unlike previous governments, he refuses to use the opulent palaces of Iran's pre-1979 Islamic revolution monarchy to receive foreign dignitaries -- a move which some local newspapers said had angered Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on a visit to Tehran this month.