Iran’s embattled President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose disputed re-election unleashed the worst political crisis in the Islamic republic’s history, appealed to parliament yesterday to approve his new Cabinet.
“I hope the majlis will firmly approve all ministers and with a decisive vote it will turn the hopes of ill-wishers into despair,” he said, using a local term to address the parliament, as he introduced his proposed line-up at the start of a three-day debate ahead of a vote of confidence on Wednesday.
Ahmadinejad said his victory in the June 12 presidential election was confirmation that the Iranian people wanted his government to “continue on the same path” of his first four-year term.
“We are committed to spreading justice, preserving the national dignity, achieving progress and confronting the bullying powers. We will continue to support oppressed nations and cooperate constructively with all nations except the Zionist regime,” he said of Israel.
But Ahmadinejad faces a daunting task in securing a mandate from the conservative-dominated assembly for his line-up which includes several new faces, among them three women — a first in the Islamic republic.
Lawmaker Ali Akbar Yousefnajed, who was a senior official in the government of Ahmadinejad’s reformist predecessor Mohammad Khatami, criticized the hardliner.
“The president used the same words in qualifying his Cabinet as he used four years ago. How come we have 14 new faces?” he asked. “Where are those who were sacked in the last four years?”
During his first term, Ahmadinejad received flak for firing 10 ministers, two central bank chiefs and several other top officials.
But conservative member of parliament Hossein Garousi defended the new line-up.
“The nominees are highly educated and they coordinate well with the president,” he said. “If we saw people changing [in the existing Cabinet], it was because the president is very meticulous when it comes to management.”
The confidence vote comes as Iran is gripped in political turmoil after Ahmadinejad’s re-election triggered massive street protests which left at least 30 people dead and shook the pillars of the Islamic regime.
Ahmadinejad is under fire from his own hard-line camp over several decisions he took soon after his re-election, and many lawmakers are furious at not being consulted over his Cabinet choices.
Iran’s continued hard-line stance over its nuclear drive and the crackdown on election protesters has also further isolated it from the West.
Ahmadinejad has retained five ministers in the same posts, including Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.
Current defense minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar has been nominated as interior minister, while commerce minister Masoud Mirkazemi is his pick for the crucial oil ministry in OPEC’s second largest exporter.
However, Mirkazemi is expected to be rejected because of his lack of expertise in the sector, media reports said. He was also nearly impeached in 2007 and last year over rising prices of basic commodities.
Reformist lawmaker Mohammad Reza Tabesh said: “The worry is that if he gets rejected, then there is less possibility of a stronger person getting nominated.”
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
RSS