A Post Nobody Wants to Fill

Rooz Online

In late May of this year news reports confirmed that the political deputy minister of Iran’s Ministry of Interior Kazem Mirvalad had resigned from his post. But with the passage of over three months now nobody has been announced to fill the post. Mirvalad was member of presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s election headquarters in 2009. His resignation was reported to be because of differences over the changes to the director-general, director-general for elections and director-general for districting.

When Mirvalad was leaving, his boss, cabinet minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli announced that he had not yet found a replacement and would take up his deputy’s job until a successor was found. Now with the passage of months the situation has become a serious issue.

Last week, Ahmad Bakhshayesh, a member of a special committee that oversees the work of parties called the Committee for Article 10 announced that since Mirvalad’s departure the group had not met. “This is a criticism against the minister and we request that this committee resume its work at the soonest. The minister must apparently cannot do this because of his work load,” he wrote.

Earlier, minister Fazli had told IRNA state-run news agency, “We had very good relations with Mr. Mirvalad and kept him for a few more months after he announced his decision to leave the ministry. It took us a while to identify individuals who could fill the position because of a number of issues. First is that there are not many people who are fit for the post while being in line with the moderate leanings of the administration. The second is that those who are in line, are not accepting the job. I recently found two or three candidates and must consult with the cabinet about them, which I hope will produce results.”

But no names have has been announced so far. Yesterday, Nasim news agency close to the Revolutionary Guards quoted minister Fazli to have said, “In reality this deputy ministerial position also has responsibilities for political parties, elections and the appointment and removal of individuals which makes me very sensitive about it. I have talked to some individuals but nobody till now has accepted the position.” He then repeated what he had said earlier that there were two or three other candidates about whom he needed to consult with the cabinet.

At the same time, another Revolutionary Guard news agency, Tasnim wrote that “Seditionists and the illegal Participation Front political party and the Mojahedin (Enghelabe Islami) group were applying a lot of pressure to have us appoint someone who is close to them. President Rouhani is under intense pressure to appoint individuals such as Haghshenas or Mohagher (the deputy interior minister for elections during Mohammad Khatami’s second term). Reformists too are applying pressure.” The author of the report continued, “Reformers are so serious about this post that they do not accept even someone like Amiri (the current vice-minister of interior). It appears that these groups desire to have someone in that position who will facilitate their return to politics and in the upcoming Majlis elections. They want to accomplish this at any cost.”

It appears that opposing and varied political factions in the country are focused on this post and their pressures have made it difficult to come up with nominees who will be acceptable

A few days ago, right-wing Mashreq website quoted an “informed source” who had said, “Minister Jalili has spoken about this with the Majlis representative from Shahrud, Kazem Jalali, who is also the head of the Majlis research center and a member of the national security committee in parliament.” The newspaper report also claimed that Jalili had also spoken with Majlis speaker Ali Larijani on the subject.

Arya news agency seemed more positive and wrote, “Recent news indicate that a moderate person will fill this post. Until this week it was said that Amiri, who is currently the vice-minister of interior would fill this position but apparently the first vice-president is opposed to this. Word has it that consultations on this will include the president and the result will be the selection of a reformist personality for the position.”

Arya named the three “reformist” individuals to be, seyed Mahmoud Mirlohi (the parliamentary deputy minister in Khatami’s administration), Mohaghar (director general of elections, also during Khatami’s administration), and Mohammad Javad Haghshenas. It sadi Haghshenas was the leading candidate.

Moderate Etemad newspaper also had a story on the subject and wrote that finding someone for the deputy ministererial position had become a headache because both reformists and hardline principlists were sensitive about the position and adamant on their perspectives. Reformists believe the ministry of interior has been very slow in promoting any political development and point to the absence of the deputy minister in that position as indicative of the absence of any plans at the cabinet level. The principlists on the other hand are using the vacant position to generate support in the Majlis for their plan to pressure the minister of interior through a call for impeachment of the minister.