MPs Feel Pressure to Approve Cabinet

Today was the final day of debate over Ahmadinejad's nominees for cabinet and there is a lot of doubt if he can get his under qualified nominees passed. Apparently members of parliament are feeling the heat from Khamenei and others to support the cabinet. It seems that Khamenei does not want to divide the hardliners any further and wants to focus on suppressing the green movement:

There have been contacts from the office of the Supreme Leader and people close to Ahmadinejad to MPs [to support his Cabinet]. In one case, Commander of the Armed Forces Hassan Firouzabadi called some MPs into his office.

One MP told Rouydad: “They have contacted Representatives and they want Representatives to approve all of the Cabinet members. Their goal is to show, through a high vote of approval of all Ministers, that their power is great and that the influence of post-election protests has been negligible.”

When asked who did the contacting, this MP said, “The contacts came from the Supreme Leader’s office and some people close to Ahmadinejad, and Maj. Gen Hassan Firouzabadi even called some Representatives into his office.”

According to the information of Rouydad’s reporter, the decision to put pressure on MPs to approve Cabinet officials was made last week in a meeting with the presence of Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, Mehdi Taeb, Morteza Moghtadaie, and some of Ahmadinejad’s deputies and some MPs including Gholamali Haddad-Adel, Mehdi Koochakzadeh, Hamid Rasaie, Movid Hosseini-Sadr, and Kazem Mousavi, as well the heads of two pro-government newspapers.