DUBAI: Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei moved yesterday to break a factional deadlock over the sensitive Ministry of Higher Education by reinstating President Hassan Rowhani’s moderate pick as interim minister, Iranian media reported.
On Tuesday, the conservative-dominated parliament rejected his fourth nominee to lead universities, which have been centres of ideological battles between pro-democracy reformers and Islamist hardliners.
The ministry has been run by a caretaker, Mohammad Ali Najafi, since August, when a moderate technocrat appointed by Rowhani to the post was impeached for alleged ties to the ill-fated pro-democracy unrest that followed then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election in 2009.
Two other nominees for the post have failed to get a vote of confidence from the assembly.
REUTERS
