[caption id="attachment_39136" align="alignright" width="210"] Iranian President-elect Hassan Rohani speaks during his visit to the Majlis (parliament) on July 14, 2013.[/caption]
President Rouhani will present his 18-member Cabinet to Parliament on Monday, seeking quick approval of the choices.
The proposed Cabinet is marked by the presence of officials who were prominent in the Rafsanjani and Khatami administrations before they were sidelined by Rouhani’s predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Among the nominees are Foreign Minister Mohammad Reza Zarif, former Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations; Oil Minister Bijan Namdar-Zanganeh, who held the post from 1997 to 2005; Economy Minister Ali Tayebnia, an academic; and Industry Minister Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh, a leading figure in Rouhani’s Presidential campaign.

As soon as he was elected, Rouhani sought a co-operative relationship with Parliament, meeting the Speaker Ali Larijani on his day after his victory. However, some hard-liners in the Majlis have threatened to block nominees on the grounds that they have connections with the 2009 “sedition”, the mass protests after the disputed Presidential election.

By Enduring America

 

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