World

Iran's Government Comes Together

June 6, 2001 / 10:51 PM EDT / AP

Iran's parliament approved all 20 of President Mohammad Khatami's nominees for Cabinet positions on Wednesday, filling out the government that would support him in his second term of office.

The vote of confidence came after four days of deliberations on names that had drawn criticism from the president's reformist allies as well as hard-liners.

The results were read out in open session after the 276 legislators present voted in a secret ballot. Each of the 20 ministers received at least 139 votes, the minimum votes possible for their confirmation.

Reformists have criticized the list, saying some nominees lack the credentials to push popular social and political change. Hard-liners, who have opposed Khatami's drive for relaxing Islamic social rules and promoting more freedoms, have said the proposed Cabinet isn't made up of people who would pay enough attention to economic development.

Of the 20 nominees before the reformist-dominated parliament, Iran's controversial oil minister during Khatami's first term, has come under the harshest attack. Hard-liners have accused Bijan Namdar Zanganeh of corruption and even reformists were severe in their criticism.

About Iran

POPULATION: 62 million.

VOTERS: About 42 million men and women over the age of 16 are eligible to vote, 5.6 million more than in the last presidential election in 1997.

SYSTEM: The president is the highest executive authority, but can be overruled on any issue by spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

POLITICS: Iran became an Islamic Republic when clerics came to power during the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which overthrew the U.S.-backed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

ECONOMY: Iran's economy, a mix of free-market and socialism, has been suffering from high inflation, unemployment that is officially estimated at up to 20 percent and a bloated public sector. The United States bans trade with Iran.

(AP)

“Mismanagement is overwhelming in the Oil Ministry,” reformist lawmaker Ahmad Meidari said in debate Wednesday on nominees before the vote. “Continuation of Zanganeh's policies is crisis-creating and disastrous.”

Zanganeh's much-criticized policy of funding development of Iran's oil and gas fields through buyback programs permits foreign companies to develop fields with their own money and pays them back with portion of output from the fields.

“Zanganeh's total reliance on buyback contracts has doubled expenses (through) heavy reliance on foreign contractors and ignoring domestic experts,” cleric Ali Akbar Mohtashami, leader of the reformist faction said in calling for lawmakers to oppose the nominee.

But Zanganeh told parliament he was “proud” to say that the contracts enabled Iran to develop its oil and gas production, particularly in fields shared with neighboring Qatar, and said 40 percent of contractors were local.

Last month, Khatami defended Zanganeh, in response to attacks by Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of the powerful hard-line Guardian Council, who accused the minister of corruption.

Khatami was re-elected by a 77 percent landslide to a second four-year term June 8. He was frustrated in his efforts to achieve many reforms during his first term by hard-liners who control the judiciary, the police, state television and radio and the Guardian Council — which must approve all legislation.

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