Setback for Iranian president as nominee ministers rejected

The Guardian:

Robert Tait in Tehran

Thursday August 25, 2005

Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, suffered his first political setback last night when the conservative-dominated parliament rejected four of his proposed cabinet ministers, including the nominee for the strategically vital oil portfolio.

After four days of intense debate, MPs resoundingly rebuffed Mr Ahmadinejad's choice of Ali Saeedlou as oil minister following fierce criticism that he was unqualified for the post.

Mr Saeedlou, who served as finance supremo to Mr Ahmadinejad while the latter was mayor of Tehran, has no previous experience in the oil industry.

The president's choices for the higher education, social welfare and cooperative ministries also failed to win confirmation. Mr Ahmadinejad has three months in which to come up with replacement nominees.

"Parliament had expected more important and better candidates to be assigned for these posts," the parliament's speaker, Gholamali Haddadadel, said after the vote.

Mr Saeedlou's rejection is the most serious blow to Mr Ahmadinejad, who has promised to redistribute Iran's vast oil wealth to alleviate widespread poverty.

The vote signalled that Mr Ahmadinejad's presidency may have a rougher ride than expected from parliament, even though most of its 290 members are conservatives who are broadly sympathetic to his hardline Islamist views.

Signs of dissent emerged when Mr Ahmadinejad formally presented his 21 nominees and programme for government on Sunday. One conservative MP, Emad Afugh, said Mr Ahmadinejad's policies amounted to little more than "beautiful words" and accused him of failing to pick the best potential ministers at his disposal.

Nevertheless, hardliners were approved for the foreign, intelligence, interior and culture ministeries, freeing Mr Ahmadinejad to pursue ideological policies in key areas.

The new interior minister, Mostafa Pourmohammadi - who will play a central role in deciding how to tackle political dissent - also came under fire during the nomination process because of his former role as deputy intelligence minister during the 1990s, when Iran's intelligence ministry was implicated in the serial murders of political dissidents.

Mr Ahmadinejad's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, is a fierce advocate of Iran's nuclear programme who has criticised the country's negotiators for making concessions in talks with the EU trio of Britain, France and Germany.

His approval came as Mr Ahmadinejad announced he was ready to offer new proposals in the talks, which stalled after Iran resumed uranium conversion work at its plant in Isfahan earlier this month.

Mr Ahmadinejad's promise of a fresh initiative came after the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog, announced that tests appeared to vindicate Iran's claims that traces of highly enriched uranium found in nuclear facilities two years ago were from imported equipment.

The US yesterday dismissed the findings as meaningless.