Parliament Approves All of Rafsanjani’s Choices : Iran Hard-Liners Lose as Cabinet OKd

Iran’s centrist president, Hashemi Rafsanjani, on Tuesday won parliamentary approval of all 22 ministers in his new Cabinet, half of them new, despite opposition from a hard-line bloc.

Rafsanjani, who has successfully confronted or outmaneuvered radical opponents in a series of political triumphs, got the ministers he wanted--technocrats, political moderates and others who are committed to his top priority, restoring the war-battered economy of Iran. A sprinkling of hard-liners was included by the politically astute president.

Never before under the Islamic Republic, founded by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini a decade ago, had an Iranian Cabinet been approved without exception. The closest to rejection in Tuesday’s voting, which followed three days of sometimes sharp debate in the Majlis, or Parliament, was the nomination of Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Serajeddin Kazeruni, a holdover, who was approved by a vote of 145 to 97.

The new Cabinet has been more noteworthy for who was not named to it, primarily former Interior Minister Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, who led the political opposition to Rafsanjani even before Khomeini’s death in early June.

Most recently, the 55-year-old president and the interior minister he dumped differed on the hostage crisis in Lebanon, with Rafsanjani assuming a far more moderate tone. Mohtashemi was instrumental in the formation of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, an umbrella group whose factions are accused of holding the 14 Western hostages, including eight Americans.

In introducing his nominees as the debate started Sunday, the president gave the ousted Mohtashemi a backhanded compliment.

“I am completely satisfied with Mohtashemi despite foreign media propaganda to the contrary. He is a close friend of mine,” Rafsanjani remarked to the parliamentary deputies. However, he added, explaining his nomination of Abdullah Nouri to run the powerful ministry, “Under present conditions, I think Nouri is most fit and will act in a more planned way. . . . He is an organizer, a realist and a planner.”

Liaison With Guards

The 39-year-old Nouri, like Mohtashemi a clergyman, was appointed by Khomeini as his personal representative to the Revolutionary Guards, the zealous, volunteer paramilitary corps dedicated to preserving the Islamic Republic.

Rafsanjani stood firm in the face of criticism that many of his ministers are inexperienced or--worse yet in the eyes of hard-liners--foreign educated.

As the debate closed Tuesday, he scolded the hard-line bloc. “If I didn’t know you,” Rafsanjani said, “my suspicion would arise that the aim was to paralyze the Cabinet.”

Elevated to the senior Shiite Muslim rank of ayatollah with his election a month ago, Rafsanjani has taken control of a greatly strengthened presidency. The position previously carried influence that varied depending on who filled it. Administrative power lay in the hands of a prime minister, who directed the ministers. On the ballot with the presidency July 28 was a series of constitutional revisions, one of which eliminated the position of prime minister.

The last man to fill that post, Hussein Moussavi, lost his job when the ballot issue was approved, and Rafsanjani has not given him a new post. The two men were rivals for power when Rafsanjani was Speaker of Parliament, a position he turned into a seat of power with his smooth political manipulation.

The parliamentary debate on Rafsanjani’s choices was carried live on Tehran Radio, and speakers used the forum to send messages to the electorate. For instance, the new parliamentary Speaker, Mehdi Karrubi, a radical in the Iranian spectrum--meaning a hard-line adherent of Khomeini’s religiously fundamentalist, revolutionary and anti-Western policies--endorsed the new ministers but warned that Parliament will watch their performance closely.

Anticipating hard-line rejection of his foreign-trained nominees, Rafsanjani began the debate Sunday by noting: “Studying at American universities was not and is not a negative point. Many (Iranians) who studied abroad have provided valuable services to this country.”

The American-trained men in the Cabinet include:

-- Finance Minister Mohsen Nourbakhsh, 41, an economics graduate of UC Davis and former governor of the central bank.

-- Iraj Fazel, 50, the new health minister and one-time education minister, who headed the medical team that operated on Khomeini’s cancerous stomach just before the aged ayatollah’s death. Fazel, a surgeon, took his medical training in the United States.

-- Mohammed Ali Nafaji, 38, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who retains the education portfolio.