Iran Watch: Parliament Fever Pitch
By Kamal Nazer Yasin for ISN
According to the Iranian Constitution, the Majlis, or the parliament, can either reject the proposed names individually or en bloc. Preliminary reports indicate that this time around, the Majlis could set a new precedent and reject the entire list if the president persists on ignoring the parliament's wishes. If so, it would be a first time this has happened in the Islamic Republic.
Aside from the small reformist bloc, resistance to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is expected to come from a wide array of forces with traditionalist and pragmatist loyalties in the parliament. In particular, Majlis leadership can play an important role in the upcoming fight. Both the speaker, Ali Larijani, and the first deputy speaker, Mohammad Reza Bahonar, are known as Ahmadinejad rivals.
Larijani was peremptorily dismissed by the president a while back as Iran's nuclear negotiator and has been a leading anti-Ahmadinejad rightist politician since. Bahonar has taken the loyal opposition mantle in the parliament and was instrumental in issuing a threatening letter by traditionalists against the president two weeks ago. Both men have tried to steer a novel middle course, straddling the reformists and the protest movement on the one hand and the hard-core pro-Khamenei alliances on the other.
Aside from these, there is a large ‘independent’ bloc of rightist MP's who might vote against the proposed cabinet list. The latter constitute an amorphous group of politicians who were elected two years ago thanks to draconian measures set by the Guardian Council against reformist candidates. Nominally hardline, many of them are under extreme pressure from their local constituencies. They may reconsider voting blindly for Ahmadinejad if they feel it may cost them votes in the next election two years from now.
In his last statement, Ahmadinejad promised a "young, competent and committed" list for his cabinet. On 16 August, he announced the names of six individuals for the ministries of intelligence, health, industry, economy, welfare and cooperatives. external pageAs was predicted last week, for the first time since the revolution, he has chosen women to fill cabinet posts. This is to silence opposition from the left flank. It would be hard for many reformist and centrist MPs to vote against the three female candidates since this has been the demand of progressives for many years. It would also make the rightists who would vote against the three women look out-of-date and foolish.
Four years ago, Ahmadinejad spent two and a half months with the selection process, discussing it with various rightist groupings before going ahead with the final announcement. This time, the identity of the six proposed ministers was kept secret from the MPs until the very last minute, when they heard it on TV. Likewise, the identity of the remaining individuals is still unknown to everyone outside the small circle around the president and his aides. Also, true to form, Ahmadinejad had floated two false lists to the press as a diversionary tactic in the days prior to the partial announcement.
The president's aim by announcing the partial list is two-fold. First, to test the line-ups in the parliament, and second, to get the non-controversial nominees accepted before the tougher selections get started.
Still, of the six individuals named, only four have a good chance of winning their posts. These are two of the three women for the ministries of health and cooperatives. Both ministries are non-political and less than significant in the greater scheme of things. The same applies to the ministries of cooperatives and economy. The man proposed for the relatively important Industry Ministry, Aliakbar Mehrabian, is an Ahmadinejad crony with a mixed-to-poor record in his performance in the country's industrial sector. He owes his past positions entirely to his association with the president.
Experts believe the sixth individual, Haidar Moslehi, nominated for the pivotal Intelligence Ministry, has a fifty-fifty chance of winning enough votes on the floor of the parliament. Moslehi is a cleric - all Intelligence Ministry chiefs must be clerics by law - with solid hardline credentials. He was Ayatollah Khomeini's representative in various branches of the Revolutionary Guards (RGCI) during the war with Iraq. He was Supreme Leader Khamenei's representative in the RGCI's Army branch for a while, and then his representative in the Basij Militia and other organs. He also was official liaison between Ahmadinejad and the clergy.
On the plus side, for his supporters, Moslehi has Supreme Leader Khamenei's full support. In fact, he is believed to be Khamenei's own first choice. On the negative side, again for his supporters, he has zero intelligence experience and is an uncritical supporter of the president. The stakes are indeed high for the Intelligence Ministry: Whoever controls it could change the balance of forces for all factions involved. As such, a hard fight over his nomination is certain.
To outflank the opposition, Ahmadinejad has played a highly elaborate game to win Moslehi's selection. After dismissing the last intelligence minister, Mohsen Ejei, the president has been the effective director of the Ministry. In the last two weeks alone, he has purged it of at least two recalcitrant deputy ministers and several other lesser officials and appointed five of his own men. According to several observers, he has been using this as leverage for Moslehi's selection.
Among the key fights would be those for the ministries of interior, foreign affairs, defense and culture. Among these, only General Mostafa Mohammad Najar's name has been leaked to the press for interior minister. He was defense minister in the last cabinet. He is generally praised by his conservative peers for the contributions he has made to Iran's military and nuclear industries through technology transfer arrangements while he was the head of the country's main military industrial center, the Sasad Military Industries. The newspaper Khabar, which printed the information, is published by the Larijani clan. This strengthens the chances of Najar's selection for this key ministry. (After all, it is the same ministry that has been accused by protestors of being behind wholesale election rigging.)