Parliament okays Pezeshkian’s entire cabinet
Unanimous approval ‘valuable’ support for gov’t: President
Iran’s Parliament on Wednesday approved all members of Reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian’s cabinet, the first time in over two decades a president has been able to receive vote of confidence for all of his proposed ministers.
Former president Mohammad Khatami, also from the Reformist camp, was the only president who had managed to do so both in 1997 and 2001.
The approval marks an early win for Pezeshkian, a longtime lawmaker who succeeded the late president Ebrahim Raisi after he died in a helicopter crash in May.
Pezeshkian submitted the list of his proposed ministerial picks to the parliament for a vote of confidence on August 11, twelve days after his swearing-in ceremony.
The Iranian lawmakers commenced the process of reviewing the qualifications of the proposed ministers on Saturday, which last until Wednesday.
Among those in Pezeshkian’s 19-member cabinet is Abbas Araghchi, 61, a career diplomat who will be Iran’s new foreign minister.
Araghchi was a member of the Iranian negotiating team that reached a nuclear deal with world powers in 2015.
The candidate who received the most support from lawmakers was the country’s new defense minister, Aziz Nasirzadeh, who received 281 votes out of 288 present lawmakers. The chamber has 290 seats.
Nasirzadeh was chief of the Iranian air force from 2018 to 2021.
Health Minister Mohammad Reza Zafarghandi received the lowest number of votes with 163.
Farzaneh Sadegh, the only female minister proposed for Ministry of Roads and Urban Development, a 47-year-old architect, received 231 votes. She is the first female minister in Iran in more than a decade.
The parliament also approved Pezeshkian’s proposed Intelligence Minister Ismail Khatib, as well as Justice Minister Amin Hossein Rahimi, both of whom served under the late president Ebrahim Raisi. Pezeshkian also put Raisi’s minister of industries, Abbas Aliabadi, in the post of energy minister.
Ahead of the voting on Wednesday, Pezeshkian addressed the parliament and urged them to approve his ministerial nominees while also calling for “unity and cohesion.”
In a message after the voting, the president thanked the lawmakers for their unanimous approval of all his nominees, saying that such a cooperation by the parliament is a “valuable support” for the government to implement its plans.
Pezeshkian’s cabinet lineup had drawn criticism by a number of individuals in the Reformist camp but he has defended his proposed ministers and called on critics to “wait for the cabinet to start work and criticize it based on its performance.”
Here’s a breakdown of the total number of votes for each
nominee:
Minister of Communications: Sattar Hashemi, 264 votes
Minister of Intelligence: Seyed Esmaeil Khatib, 261 votes
Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance: Abdolnaser
Hemmati, 192 votes
Minister of Foreign Affairs: Abbas Araghchi, 247 votes
Minister of Education: Alireza Kazemi, 268 votes
Minister of Health and Medical Education: Mohammadreza
Zafarghandi, 163 votes
Minister of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare: Ahmad Meidari, 191 votes
Minister of Justice: Amin Hossein Rahimi, 268 votes
Minister of Defense: Aziz Nasirzadeh, 281 votes
Minister of Roads: Ms. Farzaneh Sadegh Malvajerd, 231 votes
Minister of Industry, Mines, and Trade: Mohammad Atabak, 231 votes
Minister of Science: Hossein Simayi Sarraf, 221 votes
Minister of Culture: Seyed Abbas Saleh Shariati, 272 votes
Minister of Agriculture: Gholamreza Nouri Ghezeljeh, 253 votes
Minister of Interior: Eskandar Momeni, 259 votes
Minister of Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts:
Mohammadreza Salehi Amiri, 168 votes
Minister of Oil: Mohsen Paknejad, 222 votes
Minister of Energy: Abbas Aliabadi, 255 votes
Minister of Sports and Youth: Ahmad Donyamali, 253 votes