On Tuesday night, local news sources reported a list of the possible new Cabinet members that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will submit to Parliament (Majlis) on Wednesday. Ahmadinejad said that he would make use of at least three women ministers in the new government.
Fars News Agancy revealed the possible new members as:
1. Kamran Daneshju – (Ministry of Science, Research and Technology)
2. Mostafa Mohammad Najjar (Ministry of Interior)
3. Manouchehr Mottaki (Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
4. Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini (Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance)
5. Mohammad Soleymani or Reza Taghipoor (Ministry of Information and Communication Technology)
6. Abdolreza Sheykholeslami (Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs)
7. Susan Keshavarz (Ministry of Education)
8. Seyyed Masoud Mir Kazemi (Ministry of Petroleum)
9. Mohammad Aliabadi (Ministry of Energy)
10. Sadegh Khalilian (Ministry of Commerce)
11. Ali Nikzad (Ministry of Housing and Urban Development)
12. Hamid Behbahani (Ministry of Transportation)
13. Montazeri (Ministry of Justice) (not the Grand Ayatollah)
14. Habibollah Boorboor (Ministry of Agricultural Jahad)
15. Ahmad Hamidi (Ministry of Defense)
Ahmadinejad previously revealed the name of six candidates as:
16. Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi (Ministry of Health)
17. Fatemeh Ajorlou (Ministry of Welfare and Social Security)
18. Heydar Moslehi (Ministry of Intelligence and Security)
19. Ali Akbar Mehrabian (Ministry of Industries and Mines)
20. Seyyed Shamseddin Hosseini (Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs)
21. Mohammad Abbasi (Ministry of Cooperative)
During Ahmadinejad’s first term, he was repeatedly lambasted for frequently reshuffling the Cabinet and for making use of ministers who lacked experience. The criticism continues with the newly proposed list, even among hard-liners. Ahmad Tavakkoli, a conservative representative of Tehran in the Parliament, and the director of Strategic Majlis Research Center wrote an article at his website Alef on Tuesday pointing out the fact that some candidates who are in Ahmadinejad’s list “do not have even one day’s worth of experience in administrative works.”
Also, some candidates have a strong background in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and Basij, which could be one of the reasons that Ahmadinejad chose them–to continue the clampdown on opposition groups without push-back from his closest advisers.