Mahmoud Ahmadinejad keeps power but loses legitimacy, particularly among the middle class

THE case is closed. The landslide claimed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the June 12th presidential election was real, says Iran’s government, and anyone who doesn’t like it can lump it or, indeed, risk going to jail. After weeks of unrest, the state has reasserted its power. Heavy policing has blunted public protests, while a more targeted campaign of arrests, intimidation and controls on communications has hamstrung attempts to organise and sustain opposition. But with accusations of foul play still being voiced, even within the religious establishment that supports the Islamic Republic, Iran’s hardliners will struggle to re-establish legitimacy.

The Guardian Council, an appointed body dominated by clerics allied to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was in charge of investigating allegations of electoral fraud. Considering that it has a record of barring reformist candidates and that its chairman publicly endorsed the arch-conservative Mr Ahmadinejad before the ballot, the result was preordained: the council announced on June 29th that its researches, including a partial recount, had produced no sign of wrongdoing, so closing the last legal channel to contest the outcome. Pro-regime news outlets even suggested that the revised tally showed gains for Mr Ahmadinejad. The president declared not just a personal triumph but the defeat of an enemy plot to overthrow the regime. ...

A killer of another sort stalks one of Africa’s most conflict-riven countries

FOR six years, Najun Eldin Muhammad Ahmed has been living with HIV. But he is an unusual man. In the pious and conservative Muslim north of Sudan, he not only admits it, but campaigns actively to raise awareness of the virus. He has corralled 42 fellow sufferers in Port Sudan, on the Red Sea, to form one of the country’s most active AIDS-support groups. Mr Ahmed willingly concedes that his group represents only a tiny fraction of those infected with HIV, the AIDS-causing virus, in a city of almost half a million people.

On top of Sudan’s myriad other problems, such as the bloody war in Darfur, the country also has a full-blown epidemic of HIV on its hands. Reliable figures on any subject are hard to come by in Sudan, let alone one as sensitive as this. Nonetheless, enough research has been done to confirm some of the worst fears about the spread of HIV in the country. The last big study in 2003 revealed a prevalence rate of 1.6%, but experts say that is probably now approaching 3%. The rate in neighbouring Egypt, by contrast, is just 0.1%; anything over 1% is counted by the World Health Organisation as an epidemic. ...

A new leader emerges, but how credible will he be?

A NEW political force is emerging in Moroccan politics. The Authenticity and Modernity Party, known by its French acronym, PAM, with a centrist non-ideological platform open to all comers, has been in existence for less than a year. Yet it already seems destined to win the general election in 2012. In its electoral debut in last month’s municipal poll, PAM won the ballot with 22% of the vote. Yet for all its success, the ascent towards the prime ministership of its founder, Fouad Ali El Himma (pictured), is the chronicle of a political elevation foretold.

In 2007 Mr El Himma resigned from his job as deputy interior minister and announced his intention to run as an independent in the parliamentary election that year. Where a few saw a fall from royal grace— he was known to be a close political adviser to King Muhammad VI—others sensed the beginning of a reconfiguration of monarchist parties. ...

Fear and beheadings in the heartland of the militants

THE Juba river region, in Somalia, is hard country. Women are regularly eaten by crocodiles while fetching dirty water. The sandy farmland is either in drought or flooded. And the militants known as the Shabab, who rule the area, exact brutal justice. Your correspondent had to turn back from the town of Wajid (see map) this week because, within, a man was being beheaded. A day later, a clan leader was shot dead. As The Economist went to press, three more were to be beheaded in Wajid, and two more had suffered the same fate in a nearby village.

All were suspected of being “collaborators” with the internationally recognised, but largely powerless, transition government in Mogadishu that is protected by a small African peacekeeping force. It is led by Sharif Ahmed, a moderate Islamist, who once headed the Islamic Courts Union. This had imposed a tenuous calm in the city, but was swept from power by Ethiopian forces in 2006 because its erstwhile allies in the Shabab, or “Youth”, had ties with al-Qaeda. If anything, the intervention strengthened the Shabab and hardened their link with global jihadism—not least because of an influx of foreign fighters who see Somalia as the next battleground for holy war. ...

The doubters are so far being proved wrong

WHEN, in 2004, South Africa was chosen to be the first African country to host football’s World Cup many fans around the world were doubtful. South Africa would mismanage it, they said. It would be a commercial flop. They mooted Australia as an alternative should South Africa’s organisers fail to get their act together. Five years on, the doubts have diminished as new stadiums rise up across the country. Indeed, next year’s tournament may turn out to be the most profitable yet, thanks to the sale of broadcasting rights.

As a dress rehearsal for the big event, South Africa hosted the Confederations Cup, featuring the champions of the world’s six regional football federations, plus Italy (the current holder of the World Cup) and South Africa (the host). It was won by Brazil by 3-2 in a thrilling final against the United States on June 28th. ...

Beijing finds new friends in Zimbabwe

CHINA has had friendly ties with Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president, since his days as a Maoist guerrilla leader fighting white rule in the 1970s. Decades later, as he suppressed the opposition and ruined his country, China helped to protect him from sanctions at the United Nations, sold him weapons and even built his palace. But its favour, never unconditional, seems to be shifting.

On June 30th it was Mr Mugabe’s biggest foe, Morgan Tsvangirai—with whom he has awkwardly shared power in a unity government since February—who announced that China had offered Zimbabwe $950m in loans. This is well in excess of the nearly $500m Mr Tsvangirai said he had obtained in pledges of various kinds during a tour of Western capitals. ...

None of Somalia’s neighbours is keen to ride to its rescue

THE fragile government of Somalia is in deep trouble and, according to one of its officials, “scared witless”. Hence its panicky call on June 20th for troops from neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia to come to its rescue or see the country fall into the hands of jihadist fighters linked to al-Qaeda. Hence, too, the reluctance of its diplomats to heed a call from their foreign ministry to return from abroad to Mogadishu, the capital, for “retraining”. That was hardly surprising, since a teenage suicide-bomber had just blown up Somalia’s ambassador-designate to South Africa, along with its interior minister.

Fighting in Mogadishu has again emptied the coastal city of many of its poorer inhabitants. A 4,300-strong force consisting mainly of Ugandans and Burundians under the African Union’s aegis is unable to keep the peace. The government’s own troops are ill-equipped and rarely paid. ...

A debate rages about the nature of clerical rule

THE Koran is the word of God, which every Muslim must follow, but its commands can be hard to interpret. So people should submit to the rule of a properly trained religious scholar. The idea is a simple one, and the father figure of Iran’s revolution of 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, made it the central principle of his Islamic state.

But the notion of velayat-e faqih (guardianship of the jurist) has proved to be controversial as a religious doctrine and tricky in practice. The turbulence now sweeping Iran has many causes, among them a simple urge for freedom. Yet the tensions, inconsistencies and hypocrisies generated by trying to impose velayat-e faqih lie at the heart of its troubles. ...