Iran’s next cabinet to be made up “exclusively” of hard-liners

Iran Focus:

Tehran, Iran, Jul. 29 - A leading ally of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that the forthcoming cabinet of hard-line President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would be made up entirely of Islamic “fundamentalists”, newspapers reported on Friday. “There will be no outsiders”, he said.

Habibollah Asgar-Owladi, Secretary-General of the Front of Followers of the Line of the Imam and the Supreme Leader, which groups several ultra-conservative factions, told a gathering of the hard-line Motalefeh Party, “All the people who have been considered for a post in the future cabinet are fundamentalists. There is no exception among them and presently the [selection] process is coming along well”.

Motalefeh is short for Jamiat’haye Motalefeh Islami, or Unified Islamic Associations. It came into existence in the 1960s as a clandestine radical Islamic fundamentalist group supporting Ayatollah Khomeini. Its members assassinated the Shah’s Prime Minister Ali Mansour and several other political figures. Its leaders, who hailed from Tehran’s Bazaar, became multi-billionaire entrepreneurs after the Islamic Revolution. They strongly oppose foreign investment and integration of Iran in the global economy.

Asgar-Owladi said that there were debates about candidates for ministerial portfolios, but expressed confidence that the result would be similar to that of the presidential elections, where a hard-liner came out on top.

“According to reports I have received, different people have been suggested for the ministries and the President-elect is currently holding talks with them. All these people are fundamentalists. They are not a mix”, the hard-line figure said.