The political brouhaha over the firing of the intelligence minister has been papered over, but the Majlis is now launching a new brawl with the president over plans to reduce the size of the cabinet.
It isn’t clear who is right—or whether that even matters. It appears rather that Ahmadi-nejad’s enemies in the Majlis see that he has been knocked to the ground by his missteps in the intelligence minister’s firing and they do not wish to give him a chance to get back up.
When Ahmadi-nejad came out of his snit over being forbidden to fire Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi and ended his seven-day strike, he returned to a cabinet meeting that took up the pending issue of the size of the cabinet.
In the Fifth Five-Year Plan, passed last year, the Majlis said the government was too large and decreed that the number of cabinet posts should be reduced from 21 to 17.
Ahmadi-nejad announced the ministry pair-ups and listed which cabinet ministers were being eliminated.
There has now been a loud uproar from the Majlis—especially from Speaker Ali Larijani, no friend of the president. Deputies are saying Ahmadi-nejad had no power to combine ministries and no authority to fire ministers. Ahmadi-nejad says he has just done what the Majlis ordered.
The legislation passed last year says the number of ministries should be reduced to 17 and the president should “report” back to the Majlis.
The slim text does not say that the president should suggest to the Majlis what ministries should be combined. It merely says he should “report.”
In the United States, that terminology means the President should act and report back what action he took.
But Majlis deputies are now arguing that Ahmadi-nejad is supposed to report what ministries he thinks should be combined and then leave the action up to the Majlis.
Ahmadi-nejad is furious and fuming about the Majlis interfering with his authority. In a television interview Sunday, Ahmadi-nejad said all he did was to carry out the law the Majlis passed. “Merging is obligatory under the law,” he said.
The president earlier said, “The Fifth Plan has authorized the administration to merge a number of ministries at its discretion and to brief the Majlis on the duties of the new ministry, in the event a new one is established.”
He continued bitingly: “Certain persons [read Larijani] think they are the employers and the government is their worker. But it would be better if the respected Majlis fulfilled its own duties and allowed the administration to fulfill its assigned duties under the law. Unfortunately, certain people are making efforts to accuse the administration of flouting the law, but no one has yet been able to prove that.”
Mohammad-Reza Bahonar, one of the most senior deputies, is among those opposing Ahmadi-nejad. “The new ministries will not exist until their functions and authorities are approved by the Majlis,” he said.
It is interesting that the cabinet announced the first pair of ministries to be combined more than a month ago—before the flap over the intelligence minister. No one in the Majlis was heard then to complain that Ahmadi-nejad had no authority to combine those ministries.
The problem here appears to be the vagueness of the legislation. Many in Iran complain that the Majlis often avoids precision and drafts legislation in vague and opaque language. This may be an example of that.
This issue of imprecise legal wording is not unique to Iran. The US courts periodically complain about Congress drafting legislation the courts cannot understand. But the problem appears much more common in the Islamic Republic.
However, in this case, the Council of Guardians has come down firmly behind the Majlis, based not on the wording of the law, but on Article 133 of the Constitution. The Council ruled last week: “As it is clarified in Article 133, any change in the duties and legal authorities of ministers or ministries as well as the merger of two or more ministries must be approved by the Majlis. And any change in the duties and authorities of the ministers or ministries shall not be made before the approval of the Majlis. Appointed ministers of the new or merged ministries are regarded as new ministers and must receive a vote of confidence from the Majlis.”
The seemed to some a rather extensive interpretation of Article 133, which states in full: “Ministers will be appointed by the president and will be presented to the Majlis for a vote of confidence. With the election of a new Majlis, a new vote of confidence will not be necessary. The number of ministers and the jurisdiction of each will be determined by law.” That last clause was viewed by many as the key tripping up Ahmadi-nejad.
The second flap was over the firing of ministers. When eight ministries were combined into four new ministries, Ahmadi-nejad dismissed three superfluous ministers with thanks. (The fourth new ministry already had a vacancy.)
Ahmadi-nejad has full authority under the Constitution to fire a minister when he wishes. But many Majlis deputies expressed fury at what Ahmadi-nejad had done. Deputy Mohammad-Reza Bahonar acknowledged that Ahmadi-nejad had authority under the Constitution to dismiss ministers, but he pointed out that in dismissing these three ministers he cited the section of the Five-Year Plan that called for the number of ministries to be cut to 17. Bahonar said it was illegal for Ahmadi-nejad to dismiss ministers under that provision.
No one complained that Bahonar was being exceedingly technical. Oddly, Ahmadi-nejad did not just issue a new dismissal notice citing the Constitution as his authority, which would be the politically logical way to bury the issue and skewer Bahonar. It appeared instead that Ahmadi-nejad was almost joyful at the thought of another brawl with the Majlis.
There is an additional issue, which is whether the ministers of the combined ministries are new ministers and therefore need to be approved first by the Majlis. On that matter, the Council of Guardians saw a constitutional issue. It said the combined ministries were new ministries and the ministers assigned to them had new assignments and that, therefore, the Majlis would first have to give them, a vote of confidence. Ahmadi-nejad has not conceded that point, either.
The charge that Ahmadi-nejad lacks authority to combine ministries without further action by the Majlis is being led by Larijani.
Ahmadi-nejad made clear last Wednesday that he sees Larijani as trying to grab power from him. “The speaker assumes he is the law,” Ahmadi-nejad said. “This is not correct.… One cannot interpret the law any way one wishes and impose it on the government. This is disrupting the administration of the country.”
Larijani lost to Ahmadi-nejad in the 2005 presidential election and is widely believed to be positioning himself for another run in 2013. He often appears to take actions with the sole intent of hobbling or embarrassing the president.
On nuclear policy and relations with the United States, Larijani has staked out extreme positions that paint any actions initiated by Ahmadi-nejad as surrendering Iranian sovereignty. Many analysts argue that one of the hobbling features of Iranian politics is that, while sophisticated politicians agree Iranian relations with America must be put on an even keel, no one is willing to allow anyone else to get credit for doing that. So all the “out” politicos—such as Larijani—gang up against the “in” politicos to block forward movement.
In sum, the political brawl over trimming the number of ministries and choosing who will head them looks to be more politics than substance. A key question is whether Khamenehi will intervene and impose a solution or just let the boys brawl.
More than a week ago, there were news reports saying Lari-jani and Ahmadi-nejad had met privately with Khamenehi and the dispute over the ministry mergers had been resolved. However, the public brouhaha has continued unabated since then.