Ahmadinejad to reveal Cabinet on Wednesday

As the Iranian president faces a deadline to introduce his new ministers, reports indicate that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will submit the new Cabinet line-up to Parliament on Wednesday.

President Ahmadinejad will present the list of ministers to Majlis to obtain a vote of confidence.

According to Iran’s Constitution, a newly-installed president has two weeks to set up a government and submit the new Cabinet line-up to Majlis for approval. Ahmadinejad was sworn on August 5.

On Sunday, he disclosed the names of six members of the new line-up in a televised address before Majlis was let in on the list.

Ahmadinejad nominated Ali-Akbar Mehrabian as the Minister of Industries and Mines, Seyyed Shamseddin Hosseini as the Minister of Economy, Hojjatoleslam Heidar Moslehi as the country’s Intelligence Minister and Mohammad Abbasi as Iran’s Minister of Cooperatives.

He also named Fatemeh Ajorlou as the Minister of Welfare and Social Security and Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi as the Iranian Health Minister.

The Iranian president said that he would make use of at least three women ministers in the new government.

If approved by Parliament, the Islamic Republic will witness for the first time the presence of more than one woman minister in a Cabinet.

The development comes after Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election on June 12 provoked widespread opposition protests.

Amid the opposition’s refusal to acknowledge Ahmadinejad as president, Iran’s Guardian Council, the body responsible for overseeing the election, disputed all allegations against the validity of the vote.

During his first term in office, President Ahmadinejad was repeatedly lambasted for frequently reshuffling the Cabinet and for making use of ministers who lacked experience.

The removal of “too many” Cabinet members outraged his Principlist allies with many insiders going as far as to question the legitimacy of the administration.