Tehran, July 26: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday sacked his Intelligence Minister, a day after he caved in to pressure from hardliners and forced his controversial First Vice President to step down.
Various local news agencies had reported that four ministers had been sacked but Ahmadinejad’s office denied this, saying only Ejeie had been given his marching orders.
Those earlier reported also sacked are Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Mohammad-Hossein Saffar-Harandi, Labour and Social Affairs Minister Mohammad Jahromi and Health Minister Kamran Baqeri Lankarani.
Ejeie was sacked “following a verbal quarrel between him and the president in Wednesday’s cabinet meeting over the appointment of (Esfandiar Rahim) Mashaie,” the Mehr news agency quoted an informed source as saying.
Rahim Mashaie, who last year said Iran was a “friend of the Israeli people,” stepped down from post as first Vice President yesterday after his appointment by Ahmadinejad a week ago stirred controversy and angered hardliners.
The fresh political turmoil comes as Ahmadinejad was still smarting from being ordered by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to dismiss Rahim Mashaie, whom he had defended as a “trusted, devoted and pious” man.
With the latest sacking, Ahmadinejad has now dismissed 11 of the 21 Cabinet ministers he appointed when he began his first four-year term in 2005.
His second term begins officially when he is sworn in on August 5. The President will be sworn in next Wednesday, August 5,” lawmaker Hamid Reza Haji-Babai told a news agency, adding that Ahmadinejad is obliged to unveil his Cabinet within two weeks of that day. Under Iranian law, the President has to be officially endorsed in a ceremony by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei before being sworn in.
The President meanwhile came in for a fresh lashing by hardliners, who said he had defied Khamenei by taking a week to obey the supreme leader’s order to get rid of Mashaie.
The conservative Justice Seeking Students Movement urged Parliament to question Ahmadinejad on “why he was late in obeying the leader’s order and accepted (Rahim Mashaie’s) resignation instead of sacking him.”
Meanwhile, Opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi today laid down a fresh challenge to Ahmadinejad by seeking permission from the interior ministry to hold a ceremony to mourn those killed in the protests, the ISNA news agency said.
The organisers, it added, planned to hold the ceremony on Thursday in central Tehran’s Grand Mosalla, an open prayer venue where religious ceremonies are regularly held.
The Opposition said the proposed ceremony on Thursday would be held in silence.
–Agencies