Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged MPs to approve President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's cabinet, a senior lawmaker said on Friday, the latest sign of his full backing for the hard-liner. The ISNA news agency quoted Deputy Spearker Mohammad Reza Bahonar as saying that if Khamenei had not backed the proposed line-up, eight or nine nominees would have been rejected in Thursday's confidence vote rather than only three.
"The message of the leader played a big role," Bahonar said. The conservative-dominated parliament approved 18 of 21 nominees for the cabinet, rejecting two of three women proposed and the would-be energy minister.
"If we had not received the leader's recommendations, probably eight or nine ministers would have failed to win the vote of confidence, and that would not have been a good start for the government," said Bahonar, a well-known critic of the president.
"If we had not received the message of the leader, the ministers of oil, industry, commerce, co-operatives, transport and foreign affairs would have been rejected," Bahonar added. He said Khamenei's "vision" prevented this from happening and "changed the view" of parliament.
Khamenei has the final say in Iran's national issues and has openly defended Ahmadinejad's re-election despite massive public protests against his June 12 victory, which triggered the Islamic republic's worst-ever internal crisis. Ahmadinejad's main rivals still refuse to accept his election victory, which they say was the result of massive vote rigging. Hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters poured on to the streets of Tehran in the aftermath of the June election. In ensuing violence some 30 people were killed, officials say. Opposition groups put the figure at 72.