Tehran, August 20: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has begun his second term in office with 14 new ministers, replacing almost 70 per cent of his 21-member cabinet. “That’s not exactly a sign of satisfaction with his own government,” one opposition politician said.
Ahmadinejad has more than once compared his government with a football team, “where you make changes when things are not going well.”
His opponent, Mir Hossein Moussavi, has said that the numerous changes in the last four years were a sign of unstable policy.
Ahmadinejad had to make changes because his controversial re-election was allegedly due to electoral fraud and led to the most serious crisis in the 30-year history of the Islamic republic.
Over 20 demonstrators – the opposition has put the figure at 69 – were killed in mass demonstrations. Over 4,000 critics of the government were arrested and more than 100 are still in jail suspected of espionage and treason.
“New names but no change of policy,” said one observer about the new cabinet.
Little is expected to change, especially in foreign policy. The president is taking few risks and has stuck with Manouchehr Mottaki as his foreign minister. Mottaki, probably with chief nuclear negotiator Saeid Jalili, will probably take care of the controversial subject of Iran’s nuclear programme.
“We won’t change. It is the West that will have to adjust to a new era (in Iran),” Mottaki said. The European Union has still not congratulated Ahmadinejad on his re-election and will probably not do so. That has ruffled feathers in Tehran.
“(The EU) will get a slap in the face,” said Ahmadinejad. Mottaki has rejected US President Barack Obama’s September deadline for new atomic talks.
Ahmadinejad has also stuck with a familiar face in the Economy Ministry, Shamseddin Hosseini. The economy has been Ahmadinejad’s Achilles heel and the main reason for discontent within the population.
The Oil Ministry, the country’s main source of income, will be run by Massoud Mir-Kazemi, the former trade minister and a close ally of the president.
Although the central bank says inflation has fallen from 25 to 15 per cent, people have not noticed much evidence of this in everyday life. “The problem cannot be solved by figures alone,” said one banker in Tehran.
The president’s secret service has played an important role since the disturbances.
The opposition claims that many of the political prisoners in the maximum-security jails have been tortured, some killed, and that both young men and women have been brutally raped. The government has categorically rejected these allegations.
The new man at the head of the secret service is Heydar Moslehi, another close ally of the president and who was formerly responsible for the pilgrimage organization. “He has never had anything to do with the secret service in his life,” said legislator Ahmad Tawakoli.
For the first time in the 30-year history of the Islamic Republic women have also been included in the cabinet. The three women ministers are former parliamentarians Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi and Fatemeh Ajorlou for the ministries of health and social welfare respectively, and Susan Keshavarz, who was promoted from deputy to minister of education.
“Ahmadinejad wanted to have women in his cabinet to soften his image as an Islamic hardliner,” said one female reformer. All three female ministers are, however, conservatives and on the same wavelength as the president. “Nice gestures and a novelty, but the three probably won’t do anything for women,” the activist said.
At the end of the month the nominees have to attend confirmation hearings in parliament before they take office. Many legislators had demanded qualified ministers rather than ideological allies of the president. They do not appear to have got their way and nominees can expect a thorough grilling by some legislators at the hearings.
“What we first have to do is free the political atmosphere from radicalism,” the deputy speaker of parliament Mohammed-Resa Bahonar said. Bahonar says that some ministers will fail to get through the hearings for that reason.
–IANS