Tehran, August 20: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday presented a list of 14 new ministers, including three women, for his 21-member cabinet to parliament for approval, ISNA news agency reported.
Five ministers were reinstated, including Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, and two were replaced.
The three women ministers are former parliamentarians Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi and Fatemeh Ajorlou who are to head the ministries of health and social welfare respectively, as well as Susan Keshavarz, who was promoted from deputy to minister of education.
The oil ministry is to get a new head with former commerce minister Massoud Mir-Kazemi taking care of the country’s key industrial ministry.
For the intelligence ministry, the president appointed his close clerical ally Heydar Moslehi.
The parliament is to start its debates on the new ministers in August 30 in presence of the apointees.
Ahmadinejad’s re-election is still highly disputed due to alleged fraud in the June 12 presidential election, which led to mass protests, mass arrests, killings of over 20 protestors and trials against more than 100 critics, including former reformist officials, on charges of espionage.
—–Agencies