Ahmadinejad unveils new cabinet

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has submitted a list of his proposed new cabinet ministers to the country’s Parliament (Majlis).

The president unveiled his 21-member cabinet late on Wednesday.

Parliament Members will examine the list from August 23 before they hold a confidence vote on August 30.

The list includes three women to head the ministries of health, social welfare and education.

After winning a hotly disputed election in Iran, Ahmadinejad took his oath of office before the Parliament on August 5.

The president’s disputed re-election was met with opposition from other presidential candidates as mass rallies were held across the country with protestors dubbing the polls as rigged.

Vice-Speaker of Iran’s Parliament Mohammad-Reza Bahonar said on Thursday it was likely that several of the ministers would be rejected by the assembly.

“Some of my colleagues and I … believe that close to five ministers proposed by Mr. Ahmadinejad will not receive a vote of confidence,” he said, without giving the names of the ministers.

He also predicted that the rest of the proposed ministers would be approved only by a narrow margin.

The proposed ministers’ list includes:

Minister of Foreign Affairs: Manouchehr Mottaki

Minister of Oil: Masoud Mir Kazemi

Minister of Defense: Brigadier Ahmad Vahidi

Minister of Intelligence: Heyder Moslehi

Minister of Justice: Morteza Bakhtiari

Minister of Interior: Mostafa Mohammad Najjar

Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance: Seyyed Shamseddin Hosseini

Minister of Commerce: Mehdi Ghazanfari

Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance: Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini

Minister of Education: Sousan Keshavarz

Minister of Cooperatives: Mohammad Abbasi

Minister of Welfare and Social Security: Fatemeh Ajorlou

Minister of Industries and Mines: Ali Akbar Mehrabian

Minister of Jihad-e-Agriculture: Sadeq Khalilian

Minister of Communications and Information Technology: Reza Taqipour

Minister of Energy: Mohammad Aliabadi

Minister of Health: Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi

Minister of Housing and Urban Development: Abdolreza
Sheikholeslami

Minister of Labor and Social Affairs: Ali Nikzad

Minister of Science, Research and Technology: Kamran Daneshjoo

Minister of Road and Transportation: Hamid Behbahani