Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani (pictured) is suing the State broadcaster IRIB, after a senior cleric claimed in a live program that the leader smokes opium all day.

Ahmed Jahan Bozorgi, a member of an Islamic think tank, said last Thursday that the Cabinet is often unable to reach Rouhani because he is at home using the drug.

The President’s office of legal affairs said Rouhani will pursue damages for defamation. Alireza Moezi said, “What was broadcast last night was sadly just shameless insult, slander and foul language against the President.”

IRIB and Bozorgi’s institute, which advises the Government, distanced themselves from the comments.

However, Bozorgi’s comments indicate the hardline pressure that will be put on Rouhani, considered a centrist, ahead of the Presidential election in June.

Rouhani, first elected in 2013, cannot stand for a third term. But hardline factions, who took control of Parliament last year, are hoping to eclipse the President’s centrist allies.

On Sunday the Cabinet, chaired by Rouhani, “expressed deep regret about the insult to the President…and the management’s lack of response to the insults and defamations in a timely and appropriate manner”.

The Ministers called “for a change in the approach of the national media towards the Government”, expecting it to “stand by the government and the system instead of spreading despair when the government is in a full-blown economic war with the enemy”.